Quote:
Originally Posted by aerobod
Living in an environment where roads are covered with pea gravel 6 months of the year to provide winter traction and windshields on most vehicles are either badly pitted or badly cracked after one winter, there is no difference between vehicle manufacturers or aftermarket suppliers in windshield durability. Pickups and SUVs have just as many cracked screens as sedans or sporting cars.
There are only 5 significant glass manufacturers worldwide who produce for all car manufacturers and aftermarket suppliers, the only difference being the logos on the screen:
Pilkington
PGW / PPG
Sekurit / St. Gobain
Asahi
Nippon
Of the BMWs we’ve had in the family over the years, PPG, Pilkington and Sekurit have supplied the original glass to different cars from the factory. I’ve also had Japanese cars with glass from the other two manufacturers and aftermarket glass from PPG and Pilkington.
On average I have to replace windshields every 4 years, but an aftermarket one on a Nissan Pathfinder we had lasted only 6 weeks and our Z4M was still on it’s original screen after 7 years of year-round use.
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I’ve never had to replace a windshield on any of my cars until I got my 2 bmws. My Dakota, maxima, izuzu p’up, lebaron, lesabre, Cruze, avenger all had zero issues with rocks hitting the windshield. It really makes me believe that the aerodynamics of the vehicle plays a heavy roll as well (more than I thought it would).