Hello. I purchased a new 2018 Stingray from my local dealer in Valley, Alabama in December. The car had been on the lot for months, but had not been test driven and had not been demonstrated. On the day the car was bought, it was cold and raining and the car was not washed or inspected before delivery. I did not notice the scratch on the driver's side windshield. The scratch is in the complete arc of the wiper and is deep enough to feel. I discovered the scratch when I washed the car about a week after I bought it--the weather had by then cleared and warmed up. I went back to the dealer and they acknowledged the scratch and had a local glass company polish the glass and replace the wipers. The polishing helped, but after driving the car in the rain some the scratch "reappeared". I noticed that the windshield glass on this car seems very thin and fragile. My questions are: has anyone else had a problem with this model car having issues with windshield wiper scratches, and is the production Corvette windshield thinner than other GM cars and more vulnerable to damage and scratches?

 

Mine did the same thing, I’m wondering if the glass is not as hard as other windshields.

 

Yes. I don't know if the glass is diferent than the rest of GM cars, but my car tosses little rocks up on the glass and they land on the wiper blades. When you turn them on you're set up to cut your glass. Now every time I turn the wipers on when they haven't been run in a while, I get out and lift them to get the rocks first

 

Same thing on my brand new 18 stingray i bought last march, within 1 week of purchase a deep scratch appeared on the driver side glass....not sure if small rock kicked up in the rain wile the wipers were on? I could never figure out when or how it happened.

 

Bummer. Enjoy the new ride, awesome car!

 

Honestly it seems like many of the windshields are a lot more succeptible to scratching/chipping than in the past. On my DD, I’ve had it almost four years and have already replaced the windshield once and had rock chips repaired twice (both within a week of each other).

 

I too bought a car that had been sitting on the lot for months. The drivers side windshield has one pretty deep scratch and you can see a lot of "haze" on the glass from whatever dirt/crap was getting ground into the glass from the wipers. In the right lighting, it looks pretty bad.

Unfortunately, I took delivery of my GS and didn't notice the scratches in the windshield until after I drove off the lot, so I'll be paying out of my own pocket to replace that HUD windshield. Maybe that's why the dealer was trying to get me to pay that extra 2K for the windshield replacement warranty. Not impressed.

 

Sorry to hear that. Windshields today are softer because of the lamination process in manufacturing to make them safer. It's a trade off that someday will be mitigated, but not for now. It's not just GM or Corvette windshields. It's all of them.

 

Is it in your sight line? My USAA insurance would replace it were it deemed a safety issue. Whether actually cracked or not. I don't recall ever having a USAA auto policy that didn't include glass. And USAA was pretty generous interpreting what they would repair.

 

Gentlemen , take this for what it is worth but I have been in the Automotive Glass installation , Distribution , Manufacturing and Warehousing business for over 40 years now

This question comes up time and time again in these forums along with the OEM verses OE debate which I won't get into here

Laminated Float Glass is just Glass , there is not softer glass or harder glass its all the same glass that all has to pass the same DOT tests for impact ETC for all cars .... there is not a different raw stock used for different cars .....

Laminated glass has been the choice for a windshields since the early early days of automotive design, not just the windshields of today , as you really would not want a piece of plate glass to break and end up in your front seat ... ( cutting you to pieces in the process )

The true reason for the pitting and the high incidence of breakage has to do with the aerodynamics of the vehicle and the boundary layer of air that flows over any car , small pebbles and debris ride over the body of a vehicle in this boundary layer and drop out as they hit the low pressure area located at the base of the windshield which causes the pitting of the glass that we all hate , it also causes scratching if the particles are large enough and get caught between the wiper and the glass

Some cars have a higher breakage rate than others and the Corvette is one but not the number one ...... if any of you own a Late Model Ford pickup or a JEEP congratulations

As far as WIPER scratches , any car not just a corvette will get wiper scratches if you don't regularly replace them or in the off chance something was caught between the glass and the wiper during a rain storm , take a walk through a mall parking lot and take notice to the shape of the windshields in a variety of cars , I bet you will be surprised at the variety of cars that have the same defects in the glass as our corvettes

Oh by the way , I am like a shoemaker who walks around with holes in his shoes as my C7 has a mark in the Windshield just above my line of vison from a rock that hit it while I was driving down the highway .....

Am I going to worry about it , nope because the same pitting is only going to happen to the new one so I will wait till it takes a good enough shot and it breaks

Now please don't start with the OEM verses OE debate lol lol lol

Dave

 

Very good. I used to manage a computer and network systems for a major automobile glass manufacturer. This is what they shared with me.
The problem with windshields being damaged more easily now than in the past comes when the heat and pressure used during the lamination process. The glass outer layers go through a lot of stress, which causes them to form microscopic defects, especially around the edges of the windshield. Whenever a rock, piece of debris, or sudden and violent jolt affects the area where these stress defects are, the windshield is more likely to more easily sustain a larger chip or crack.

In the grand scheme of things, these little manufacturing defects that cause windshields to be more easily damaged are seen as a necessary evil. Windshields are much safer for passengers in the vehicle now thanks to the advancements made in the lamination process, but unfortunately that same process makes them more easily to get chipped or cracked. In time, further advancements in manufacturing will solve or at least limit the frequency of defects, but for now it is a case of taking the bad with the good.

 

Some of your statements that were shared with you are correct and I can appreciate the fact that you worked in the industry but …...The windshield manufacturing process has been fundamentally the same since the advent of curved windshields and at the risk of oversimplification I will explain why your statements of current manufacturing technics are causing a higher occurrence of problems , the exact opposite is what's true . Current manufacturing has allowed more complex bending to be accomplished and a much stronger windshield to be now made , thickness and weight has been reduce to allow the manufacturers to specify a LIGHTER piece to be made to aid in weight reduction and still be stronger than anything that was made in the past

Two pieces of glass are cut to size , they are then edge ground to prevent the types of micro fissures you are talking about from causing stress cracks , next the painted frit ( Ceramic Coating ) along with all the DOT numbers etc. is silked screened on to the interlayer of one of the lites of glass

Next the glass is then sent into an oven on a" TOOL" that basically mimics the curvature of the car that it is intended to fit , as the glass goes thru the oven it is not PRESSURE that shapes the glass , it is the CONTROLED heat that causes the glass to sag into shape and not induce any stress related areas . From there it goes into an autoclave where all the remaining air is sucked out and the two pieces now become one …. Glass is never subjected to pressure of any kind during the process , Complex bends are made by controlling the heat that is applied to the certain areas of the glass that need more " SAG" . Each windshield has its own " RECIEPE " of heat cycles that produces the right SAG rate without inducing the stress that could cause problems with cracking later

The point I am trying to make is it is these advances in cutting and OVEN technology IE Electric furnaces that heat certain areas that need more heat to " BEND" instead of the old gas ovens where the heat could not be controlled and induced the STRESS areas that you speak about and newer much improved edge grinding technics have all allowed the manufacturers to produce a thinner and lighter windshield that way stronger than any earlier ( IE 1990's ) windshield . Windshields when bonded with todays Urethane adhesives are now an intracule part of the structure of the car allowing manufactures to reduce the amount of steel , therby reducing weight even further ( all about increasing MPG)

So to clarify for everyone on this forum that's asks tha age old questions , is the glass softer , why does it break? is it cheaper? etc etc is …...todays windshields are way stronger, lighter and more resistant to cracking than anything that was made in the past , the pitting that we see in our cars …. that is just a fact of life, its glass , shower any type of glass with road debris while traveling at 60 MPH and you will experience pitting and scratching , have something stuck on your wiper and it drags across it , a scratch will appear , glass is still glass ….

Dave