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john65pennington's avatar

What ingredient in a Coke cleans a cars windshield?

Asked by john65pennington (29273points) August 26th, 2010

My cars windshield had an unbelievable amount of grease and dirt on it. The windshield washer cleaner did not touch the grease, it only smeared it from one place to another. My wife grabs and opens a can of Coca-Cola and pours the contents onto the windshield, while my wipers were on. I was shocked at what i was witnessing. The grease and dirt disappeared!! Question: What’s the magic ingredient in a can of Coca-Cola that makes grime disasppear off a cars windshield?

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8 Answers

Austinlad's avatar

In all my life I never heard of this, but Google turned up a number of links about it, this one, for example

john65pennington's avatar

I never heard of a Coke completely dissolving a T-Bone steak in two days. wonder why the human stomach tolerates Coca Cola? also, the corrosive placard on trucks hauling Coca Cola syrup? that’s mind-boggling!

Aster's avatar

doesn’t it have some sort of acid in it?

downtide's avatar

Phosphoric acid. Whatever that is. It sounds nasty.

@john65pennington the stomach will tolerate it because it’s designed to tolerate a highly acidic environment. Stomach acid would probably dissolve the steak in less than 2 days.

IchtheosaurusRex's avatar

@downtide , Phosphoric acid it is. This is also the principle ingredient in a bathroom cleaner called “Lime-Away.”

Coca-Cola has a lower pH (means more acidic) than vinegar.

JilltheTooth's avatar

It’s also the fizzitude. It agitates the icky stuff to make it easier to remove. Sorry about all the technical jargon, I didn’t know how to put it in lay terms.

Winters's avatar

It’s also used sometimes at scenes of say a car crash to clean possible blood off the street.

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