Just noticed when cleaning the car I've had for about 4 months (with wash mitt, two buckets etc, I'm quite careful) that my windscreen (top left corner) and my passenger side window have some deep scratches in them.  I can 'catch' some of them with a fingernail, though others are lighter.

 

Rash prediction:  bird poo or some such that the previous owner took a scrubbing pad to.

 

My wife (very observant, should be a copper really.  or a spy) told me 'they were there when you got it' (having noticed them from sitting in the passenger seat). 

 

Is there any point at all in spending hours with products available online, drill / polishing discs etc?

 

Or are they best left alone (risk of possibility of making it worse / lensing the glass etc outweighs the chance of any improvement.

 

Is there a 'magic' product worth a try?

 

Or is there anything that contains 'fillers' of any kind that can temporarily mask / hide these things?

 

Absolutely not an amateur detailer here.

 

ps this is a great part of the Forum with lots of good advice on products, paint care etc.

 

Cheers

I have been in the belief that if you can get your nail into it there's not much you can do about it. I have got a couple on mine like that. 

I worked in glass industry for many years and I can tell you there is no magical cure. Saw it all the time. Often it was people wiping condensation from the screen with a ring on their finger. Or on the outside, it was often wiper blades, kept too long, that scuffed up the glass, or even caught a stone and scrapped it across the glass. 

We had a machine for a while that did an amazing job of removing the scuffs and scratches. It was basically a buffing machine that used a special compound. But all it was doing was wearing the surround glass down to the depth of the scratch or scuff until the mark was no longer visible. Problem was you were left with a windscreen that had a varying thickness in the glass which looked warped when you looked through it. It caused more hassle that it was worth so we got rid of it.

 

Bottom line, no real solution to scratches in glass other than replacement. And by the by, most insurance companies won't cover scratches, only breakage.

^^^ polishing out scratches just means removing more glass.

 

Windscreen is a laminate with 2 very thin pieces of glass, so polishing depth off 1 piece is actually having a more serious affect than you think. You might think you're removing 10% off the total thickness but you're actually taking 20% off the thickness of 1 piece - not a great idea. Side windows are toughened so I'd like to see what could realistically be achieved at home without some serious machinery. Then again, polishing the surface of toughened glass might not be a good idea  - the compression from the outer surface of the toughened glass is the only thing stopping the inner part of the window (under tension) from exploding. Removing enough thickness from the surface might weaken it enough to give you a problem...

On the subject of scratched glass.....scraping ice off frozen windows in winter can cause lots of small scratches which you don't notice until the Sun shines six months later! Apparently, the correct way to do it is in one direction only....away from you. Most people I see doing it are scrubbing back and forth with the scraper. (Not me though, my car's garaged!)

On the subject of scratched glass.....scraping ice off frozen windows in winter can cause lots of small scratches which you don't notice until the Sun shines six months later! Apparently, the correct way to do it is in one direction only....away from you. Most people I see doing it are scrubbing back and forth with the scraper. (Not me though, my car's garaged!)

Hence why I only use the rubber part of the scraper. Less likely to do damage.