Maintenance & Mods (L322)
Windscreen Scratches
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wackyjim wrote:
If the you are worried that your insurance company won't cover wiper scatches then the solution is simple!!
That brings back memories.
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^^ Conor....was waiting for that!!
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After some research, I’ve just online ordered some material from CarPro UK (Edinburgh based and chap called Andy was very helpful/ offered detailed advice).
I’ve ordered a 150ml bottle of Ceriglass (£7.00) and 5 x 5 " Rayon Glass Polishing Pads (£13.50). Postage is a flat rate of £3.
The advice was that for all scratches more significant than traditional wiper marring this Ceriglass paste and the Rayon Glass Polishing Pads will be necessary (they do sell both 3” and 5" pads which come in packs of 5 which they advise is the average number needed for a windscreen with marks).
Carpro advise that a rotary polishing machine is needed to be aggressive enough to work the polish/pad combo, but you need to be careful not to create too much heat because of the laminate layer in modern glass windscreens. I’m advised that the best bet with a fixed speed machine (mine is 1800rpm) is to toggle the trigger to keep the working speed much lower (below 1200rpm ideally). They also advise that as cerium oxide polish (Ceriglass) is quite dry, to keep the screen sprayed with water to help its working time and to help reduce the temperature.
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Hi,
Today, I spent 1 hour and 30 minutes on one half of the front windscreen using polished bliss ceriglass and their rayon pads.
Screen was washed first, then I started putting 10p piece size blobs of ceriglass on rayon pad and then heavy duty rotary polished until the paste had gone. It was spitting rain at the time and I kept spraying screen lightly with hose too (there's no horrible oversplat on my car due to doing this in the rain and having a hose 'on tap').
I didn't slow the speed down from 1800RPM (advisory was to do it @ 1200 by triggering) as I couldn't get enough pressure on the rotary when doing that and due to the size of the car/ awkward ladder angle I was adopting..
Then I started to smear some of the ceriglass on the screen to ensure each bit of the screen 'got a coating'.
I wiped the screen as dry as I could with a good microfibre after each pass/ have done about a dozen passes.
Light not good and stopped working on it but the wiper scratches are still visible from inside the car although they might have toned down a bit.
Not actually sure if this process is proving or will prove too effective... and all on scratches that my nail does not even catch (but the wiper scores are very annoying 'in the light').
... And.. have just looked at the glass during a brief dry spell and am sure the rayon pads have actually put more scratches on the screen whilst not eradicating the original ones (unless these scratches were that fine that the ceriglass paste has made the window so sparkly clean that everything shows up more clearly).
Can't face doing any more on it but will have to
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Rob2529
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I looked into this a long time ago and people thought doing this could
up the optics of the screen making the screen worse than a few scratch's. 
[img]http://www.fuelly.com/driver/rob2529/range-rover[img/]
04, 4.4V8, Vogue Oslo Blue with LPG.
"You can sleep in your car, BUT you can't race your house!!!!"
If something can't be fixed with a hammer....... You have yourself an electrical fault! -
stan
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i reckon the only solution is a new screen
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Y. O. L. O.
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Baron
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4.4 TDV8 Vogue Baltic Blue MY11 -
On reflection (
) you make a clear point ( ):
Close inspection of this now well polished screen suggests that there are wiper scratches and that it has probably taken a battering by a person or persons 'cleaning' it with a poor quality brush and/ or some sponge/ cloth with grit in it.
Never ceases to amaze me that people will spend so much money on a vehicle and not give a stuff about how to look after it! -
Baron
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4.4 TDV8 Vogue Baltic Blue MY11 -
Finished this morning/ can't take any more
Probably spent the best part of 5 hours in total on the front screen and I'm prepared to do no more!
Easily the most frustrating and soul destroying task I have undertaken in a long time. I think the 'Heavy Duty' aspect of my Sealey rotary machine refers to the fact that it weighs a tonne.
I think I now realise that whilst there were no fingernail catchers, the entire windscreen was actually quite badly scratched and it can only have been like that - not due to a 'soft' or inferior screen - but due to previous neglect.
I'm sure the clarity of the screen has improved and that the prominent scratches are now significantly toned down to the point where 'one has to really look for them' as opposed to them 'jumping out' whilst sitting in the front seats.
The biggest difficulty that I found, aside to the weight of the polisher (weak my arms are not), was the size and bulk of the RR/ being unable to 'get square on' to the more central areas of the screen where wiper arc scratches were present. Should have hired some scaffolding!
So, marks out of 10 for £23.50 worth of ceriglass & rayon pads; a rotary polisher; and 5 hours of soul destroying graft on this screen?
7.5 to 8 (although we shall see how good the job really is if the sun ever hits the screen again)...
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Baron
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Well all I can say is thank you, for helping me decide between the polishing or replacement route. Having heard your story I'll be stumping up for a replacement, no question. Your pain has not been in vain.
4.4 TDV8 Vogue Baltic Blue MY11 -
Thought I could do a better job than my first attempt.
This week, in bite size chunks, I've patiently and progressively worked on parts of the windscreen that kept drawing my eye to scratches.
The trick (I think/ obvious in hindsight) is to focus on a particular area of scratches by putting masking tape on the inside of the windscreen in smallish squares, outlining specific scratches before setting to work on that clearly marked/ focused area from the outside.
Another thing I found was that performance improved by just firmly holding the rotary polisher and letting the weight of the polisher glide it back and forth over the area being worked on (as opposed to my initial 'technique' of almost pressing down on the rotary with my full upper body weight, wrongly thinking that would mean cutting into the scratches more quickly).
I'm still at a loss as to how so many scratches ended up all over this windscreen / never really had any prevalent scratches on any windscreens before. As previously mentioned, all of the glass on the car has the Land Rover stamp, except the windscreen and so I presume this windscreen was replaced at some stage/ maybe it's not as good quality as the LR stamped glass, although I'm sure some will say you just pay extra for the privilege of having the LR stamp on what is the same glass (I do know from previous experience via Autoglass, when specifically requesting an Audi stamped replacement windscreen we went from having to pay no insurance excess for a replacement screen to £225).
So now the £23.50 (incl delivery) 'Car Pro' price for the ceriglass paste and 5 rayon pads seems like money well spent as the scratches are dramatically improved all round and it now feels like a pleasing job well done/ I doubt most people would ever notice any scratches on the windscreen.
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