Rain-X - KFVS12 News & Weather Cape Girardeau, Carbondale, Poplar Bluff

Rain-X
By: Amy Jacquin

It's billed as an "invisible windshield wiper", but can a $2 bottle of Rain-X really keep you in the clear on a rainy day? A lot of people use it, but does it work?

Rain-X claims to work by sealing your windshield with a non-stick, invisible barrier that repels rain, sleet and snow on contact, making the wet stuff bead-up and blow away.

For a side-by-side comparison, we put Rain-X on one-half of a clean windshield, and left the other side bare. Closely following directions, we covered the driver's side, let it dry, covered it a second time and waited for that coat to dry.

As it dried, it left a little bit of a hazy covering, almost like a wax for your windshield. We remove that haze by sprinkling the windshield with water, and wiping off the Rain-X. The directions say it's important to remove all the haze until it's crystal clear, and that's what we did.

So now we're ready for the water test. Mother nature didn't cooperate on this day, so we made our own rain by pouring a hose over the windshield. And Rain-X made a dramatic difference. The bare side is pretty much a solid sheet of water over the windshield. But we can't hardly get the water to stick to the Rain-X side. Despite the hose, you have a pretty clear view.

And as we turned the hose off, the Rain-X clears the windshield in less than 2 seconds. But water continued cascading down the passenger side.

Rain-X works better in heavy rain rather than drizzle, and at higher speeds rather than city driving. You need to re-apply every few weeks, and it's hard to get off. The Rain-X website even devotes quite a bit of space to removing it. Plus some viewers say it works better on cars with intermittent wipers. But there's no doubt this two-dollar product works well enough for us to give Rain-X an 'A'.