Best Microfiber Towels for Cars 2025

If you still believe that choosing a specific brand of towels will improve your detailing, you are WRONG!

Most brands you know are ordering towels either from China or South Korea. Might even be from the same factory. But it doesn’t mean all the towels are the same.

Some may even leave swirls on your paint!

So the best towel for you is the one that fits your needs and provides the lowest price. Let’s discuss what to look at when choosing a microfiber towel for your car, and I will provide my favorites for each task.

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Microfiber characteristics to pay attention to

To summarize, the best microfiber towel for detailing must have:

1. 70/30 blend microfiber
2. Soft edge stitching or edgeless
3. High GSM, 250-500 for interior detailing, polish removal, 500 and more for drying towels
4. Different colors (or edge color) to distinguish towels for waxes and the rest for cleaning the car
5. Minimum size of 16″x16″(40x40cm)
6. Suitable pile height (ultra low – multimedia screens, low – removal of waxes, medium – general cleaning, high – drying, waffle – drying, glass cleaning).

Choosing the blend: 70/30 or 80/20?

Car microfiber is usually a blend of polyester and polyamide.

So, while 100% polyester is considered not safe for the paint, a 70/30 blend is an icon of paint safety.

But what about 80/20?

So, 80/20 towels are also considered safe for paint when they have soft weave and stitching.

Having more polyester in the compound makes them less delicate and more durable than 70/30 towels, which, in simple words, means you can wash them more times before they start to fall apart. As well, such a towel should be relatively cheaper, which is not always the case.

However, less polyamide means lower absorbency, which is important when you need a drying towel. But what is more important is that the 80/20 blend makes it less soft than the 70/30, which will not lead to instant scratches on your car but will keep your towel paint-safe for fewer times.

For me, the conclusion is simple, because in Europe, 80/20 is considered to be a gold standard, such towels are being sold for the same price as 70/30, so when you have 2 different options for the same price, I choose the one that has higher quality and is safer. In the US, 70/30 is standard for reputable brands, so here you can save some money using 80/20 from unknown brands, but is it worth it?

I have an answer for that in the ‘Nasty’ towels category!

Do scratch-free microfiber towels exist?

As we discussed, high-quality microfiber towels for car detailing are:

• Made from premium 70/30 or at least 80/20 blended microfiber
• Has soft edge stitching or edgeless
• Has a suitable weave for your task

These factors lower your risk of leaving scratches and swirls on car paint and other sensitive surfaces,

but does not guarantees scratch free experince!

To make your experience as scratch-free as possible, except for good towels, you should also follow these rules of scratch-free detailing.

Microfiber towel maintenance

I can tell you more, you need to wash them, and the more you wash them, the better experience you have when you use them. No microfiber towel will work better than a clean one. Just keep in mind several things:

1. Wash towels for waxes and sealants (everything oily or wax consistent) separately from towels for general cleaning. Oils and waxes from wax towels will spread on a drying towel. It will not absorb water so well anymore.
2. Use special detergents for microfiber towels – they will remove stains more effectively than laundry detergents.

Best microfiber towels for cars 2025

I won’t provide 10 different options, as most top-tier towels are identical; the difference is the price. So I will share a few best bang per buck options, that will let you dry a car of any size while keeping maximum safety for the paint.

Best Towels for Drying a Car

1. THOR ‘The Diva’

Considering its price, blend, GSM, and size, it’s an unbeatable deal, only if the second option doesn’t have a lower price on the day of your purchase.

2. TRC ‘The 1500’

It has a smaller size and a bit higher price without discount compared to our first option, but provides the same high quality and bang for buck value. Plus, if you don’t love towels with borders, it’s your way to go.

Best Multipurpose Towels

These towels are what I personally use the most, they shouldn’t have high GSM, a large size, but I want them to be safe for all the surfaces, and cost a reasonable money.

I use them for cleaning and protecting interior and exterior trim, removing bird droppings, removing and buffing waxes, and many other tasks. Because of that, I need them in bulk, and that’s what I pick.

Simple Houseware Towels 12-pack

Don’t get frustrated by the brand name; these towels are for cars.

I’ve been looking through various option from well-known car detailing brands, but even the cheapest option with similar characteristics from them are so far from Simple Houseware 12-pack, it’s even hard to describe.

Best Glass Towels

Why do we need glass towels? A common mistake is that people expect having no streaks only by using ‘glass’ towels. It’s a magic tool, it’s just a towel. So, this is how I use glass towels:

1. I’m removing the main dirt and nasty stuff using glass cleaner and multi or nasty towels.
2. Then I use a bit of glass cleaner and wipe the windshield to perfection using the glass towel.

So I recommend using them only on precleaned glass to achieve streak and haze-free car glass.

TRC ‘Dry Me A River’

As you may guess, I love waffle towels for glass cleaning, and ‘Dry Me A River’ gives the most value for its price. You get 5 towels, so if you use them the same way as I do, as a finishing towel, they will last for years!

You can get a bigger size but fewer towels in a pack, but as for me, 16” x 16” is the best, because it will be much easier to work in tight spots while wiping glass from the inside.

I’ve checked many other waffle towels, but most of them are for household use and have at best an 80/20 blend.

Nasty Towels

There are plenty of tasks where using an expensive 70/30 will be overkill, so we always need some cheap, nasty towels.

And the good news is that nowadays, even 80/20 towels have become so affordable that we can use them for some dirty tasks and not just with rough surfaces.

1. 80/20 and 70/30

Both options displayed identical; however, one says it’s 80/20, while another is 70/30. But whoever is right doesn’t matter, as you will check the prices of both and take the cheaper one. For our tasks, both are great.

‘A Steal Price’ microfiber towels

These towels are closer to one-time-use towels, as they are most probably 100% polyester, and too thin for absorbing at least something.

Some contaminations require us to use something more durable than paper towels, but are too nasty for using good 70/30 towels. This is exactly when you can use such towels. For example, to remove some sticky residue from the cup holder or to apply tire shine.

Do not use them on sensitive surfaces!

Conclusion

Years later, I’m looking at microfiber towels from a different angle. When I launched this website, I thought that top brands use different technology to make their towels superior to others, so you need to pick a brand of towel precisely.

Now, when I realize that nearly all the fancy brand towels are manufactured in China or Korea, with a high possibility even in the same factory, why should I overpay for a specific brand?

So, these are my top picks of the best microfiber towels for cars in 2025 that won’t cost you a fortune.

Hope you will enjoy using them. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me on Facebook, join my YouTube channel, and have a lovely detailing, folks!