One of the things I noticed right away in our Westy was that there were very fine scratches in the windshield. These scratches were where the wiper blades contacted the glass. The scratches weren’t deep enough to feel with your fingernail. They weren’t very visible during the day; the effect was more like a haze on the glass. At nighttime, however, the lights of oncoming cars really showed the scratches up, and they cut down on visibility.

I tried all kinds of conventional glass cleaners and polishes, but these weren’t effective. I had hopes for a Rain-X product that coats the glass. You spray it on and wipe it off. It did help slightly, but didn’t eliminate the problem.

I finally started searching the web to see how other folks tackled this problem. One person applied carnuba wax to the windshield every year to hide the scratches! I did try a small area using this approach, but it was a waste of time.

Most of the articles I found suggested that you need to use a special glass polishing compound (cerium oxide) to get rid of the these fine scratches. I finally found a Glass Polishing Kit on Amazon that came with the polishing compound and a set of pads for your electric drill. The reviews were pretty good so I decided to give it a try.

The Results

I applied the polishing compound to the windshield and worked on small areas at a time – about 1 foot square. I found that I had to frequently re-wet the pad on the drill because it dried out quickly. After completing the first pass, I cleaned the windshield and saw significant improvement. The scratches were still visible, however. So, I repeated the process a second time. The results after two passes was fantastic. It was difficult to see any scratches. The only ones that you could see were the very deep ones. Fortunately, there weren’t very many of those, so I decided to quit there and see how the windshield performed in real-case driving.

I’ve driven Westy for about 4 months since the treatment and I am totally satisfied. The windshield isn’t perfect, but it totally acceptable. There is no sun or headlight glare on the glass, and the visibility is great.

The one thing I did notice after the process was that I had to thoroughly clean up the splatter from the polishing process. This dried to a white color. I used bath towels to cover all around the windshield to minimize the splatter, but it got into places I didn’t expect. So, be prepared to look your rig over carefully and thoroughly afterwards to clean up all the mess.