Auto Glass: Side Window Scratches, Scratches, POLISHING


Question
After many years of rolling the driver's side window up and down, scratches have appeared on the outside.  None are deep but cover a large portion of the glass.  I assume that the body trim at the base of the glass had some type of rubber/felt material that has deteriorated and this has caused the problem.  Anyway, found this  solution http://www.essortment.com/hobbies/diyhowtorepai_sggt.htm and wanted to get your opinion.  Please advise best way to resolve this problem.  Thanks in advance.

Answer
Hi Mary,



          I agree that some scratches can be totally removed on Windshield Safety glass using this method but on Tempered Door glasses if you can feel the scratch with your finger nail then experience tells me that you will not see a big difference no mater how much you polish.

Tempered glass unlike Safety Laminated Glass is very hard do to the heating and cooling prossess it goes through. Once it has taken its given form, it can not be Cut, Sanded, or polished without the risk of shattering.  

It has taken your window many years for the scratches to become bad enough to need replacing but I have seen New cars only a couple of months old with this same problem.


The villian here is SAND and Dirt. It gets caught in the Felt used to keep out the water as you have mentioned above and starts scratching the first time it makes enough contact with the glass.

To fix this we have used a couple of methods, one is a Toothbrush and the other is a plastic puddy knife wrapped in a Terrycloth hand towel.

With the window rolled down work the Tooth brush back and forth until all Dirt/Sand is out and then spray glass cleaner on the towel and it should get the rest of the finer stuff.

                              HOPE THIS HELPS! DEREK :)

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