My car is just over two years old and has only 18K miles on it but the windshield is as bad as any I have ever had. It is badly pitted, nicked, and scratched. The low sun this time of year results in very poor visibility on the damaged glass.

I spent a good part of the day trying to polish out some of it using Cerium Oxide and a buffer. It was a waste of time and effort and unless you have a real insight into how to do it I don

 

I agreee with you!

 

I'm sorry that I can't offer any insight to a solution other than replacement. My windshield is also damaged with thousands of little nicks and chips with 25k on the odometer. Here in south Florida there are a lot of trucks hauling carbonate gravel. Despite laws requiring covering the load, much of this material flys out of the truck bed at highway speeds and has peppered my front clip and windshield with nicks and chips

Many states have insurance laws regarding 0-deductible windshield replacement due to large chips or cracks, but this would probably not apply for us. Has anyone been successful with a warrantee replacement from Honda?

 

Florida is one of the states where you get a $0 windhsield replacement. They wont replace for chips, but they will for a crack. If you want one bad enough there are several means of creating said crack!

I doubt Honda would do anything as its just from use.

 

This has been a sore point for me, too.

I'm suspicious that the problem may be largely caused by the rather upright angle of the windshield. My daughter's '96 Civic, which has 80K miles on it, has fewer windshield pits than my S2000. I have no reason to think her windshield is made of different stuff than mine, so it seems likely to be the angle. Hers is raked back much more.

I suppose adding a wing or deflector somewhere forward of the windshield might help, but the thing would probably have to be: (1) developed in a wind tunnel, (2) screwed to the hood (arrgh!), and (3) mondo stupid-looking. This solution could be worse than the problem.

To prevent the pits in the first place, those with sprayers might think about clear-coating the windshield, then covering that with a few coats of carnauba wax. When the clear-coat gets pitted and scratched, take it off with lacquer remover and start again. (Disclaimer: I've never heard of anyone who has done this, and I'm not saying it's a good idea. I'd surely test this on some scrap glass before doing it to my car.)

 

Agree with the above. I have 16K miles (MY00) and the windshield is the pits (pardon the pun). Going west in the evening is a killer. It seems the pits defract the light and even with good sun glasses make it hazardous to drive. I will be contacting the local Honda dealer in the next few weeks to see if it can be replaced under warrantee. The worst that they can say is no. As stated above the "magic" crack or chip might just appear.

 

I've noticed this starting to happen to my '02 with only 3000 miles! Bummer

 

Yes, definitely a problem. Especially if you enjoy spirited group drives on a regular basis. I had the windshield replaced about 7k miles ago and it's starting to show signs of pitting already (especially noticable immediately after the Rick Hesel meet, being at the back of the pack as I was).

Unfortunately, MD does not have any $0 deductible windshield replacement laws. As far as the state is concerned, insurance companies can do as they wish. I hate it.

Solutions? New windshield, I guess... High speeds and a little bit of sand and gravel is all it takes to kill the windshield on this car. Even on the Integra, after 32k the windshield was pitted to hell.

- Chris

 

New product found seen on TV to help reduce rock chips on the windshield. http://www.glasgard.net I haven't tried it yet. I've been using Klasse All In One polish/sealant on the windshield it it still looks pretty good after almost 20k miles. Anyone tried the Glas Gard product yet?

 

I don't think the problem is the angle of the windsheild or the quality of the glass. It is simply the windshield is very low to the ground relative to almost every other car out there. Most of the stones that hit our windshield would hit the grill and bumper on other cars. Mine has 3800 miles and is still perfect however I never tailgate and stay even further back in the S.