diff --git a/test/e2e/framework/test_context.go b/test/e2e/framework/test_context.go
index a6b4c5d302a..8ef1babca21 100644
--- a/test/e2e/framework/test_context.go
+++ b/test/e2e/framework/test_context.go
@@ -158,7 +158,7 @@ func RegisterClusterFlags() {
 	flag.StringVar(&TestContext.UpgradeTarget, "upgrade-target", "ci/latest", "Version to upgrade to (e.g. 'release/stable', 'release/latest', 'ci/latest', '0.19.1', '0.19.1-669-gabac8c8') if doing an upgrade test.")
 	flag.StringVar(&TestContext.PrometheusPushGateway, "prom-push-gateway", "", "The URL to prometheus gateway, so that metrics can be pushed during e2es and scraped by prometheus. Typically something like 127.0.0.1:9091.")
 	flag.BoolVar(&TestContext.CleanStart, "clean-start", false, "If true, purge all namespaces except default and system before running tests. This serves to Cleanup test namespaces from failed/interrupted e2e runs in a long-lived cluster.")
-	flag.BoolVar(&TestContext.GarbageCollectorEnabled, "garbage-collector-enabled", false, "Set to true if the garbage collector is enabled in the kube-apiserver and kube-controller-manager, then some tests will rely on the garbage collector to delete dependent resources.")
+	flag.BoolVar(&TestContext.GarbageCollectorEnabled, "garbage-collector-enabled", true, "Set to true if the garbage collector is enabled in the kube-apiserver and kube-controller-manager, then some tests will rely on the garbage collector to delete dependent resources.")
 }
 
 // Register flags specific to the node e2e test suite.