Windscreen Woes

[christopher rees]

had windscreen repaired by a national company.when i put double screen demister/wiper ice melter on the radio goes all fuzzy/bad reception! lexus say its a windscreen not installed properly, windscreen man says its cars fault. radio goes fuzzy when demister wires are connected or not /? anyone out there had a similar prob? lexus want me to book it in,who pays? i have a windscreen insurance excess of £60 which i have paid,will they pay my time,my fuel etc? any help please because they wont help,and im the one outta pocket at end of day.thanks chris [lex loofah]

[steve2006]

If your radio was OK before the windscreen was replaced and now isn't the only thing different is the windscreen.

There have been many posts on the forums where after market windscreens have caused problems either with poor fitting/sealing to not even fitting at all.

Ask the fitting company why the radio was fine before the screen replacement and isn't now,nothing else has been changed has it.

On my LS400 the radio aerial uses the rear demister element and I have never had a reception problem on the original rear screen.

[Shepherd]

I have this problem from the start and I know others have had this problem as well. The radio antenna is built into the rear glass not the front windscreen. putting demister ON passes electric current and engine noise into the antenna causing it to go fuzzy on some cars. as far as I know windscreen replacement should have nothing to do with this.

[christopher rees]

thanks taimur,my radio pickup is in rear screen aswell,does your car have double demister button on dash?also i told windscreen man i wanted proper lexus glass because of wiper heater and black strip under interior mirror,also the new glass has lexus on it,all very puzzling. thanks for your input, chris [lex loofah]

[timcunnell]

Just to add my 10p worth on this one - my IS220d has this exact problem too. It is going tomorrow so I guess I don't really mind any more! But it has been really annoying because I do mostly listen to the radio. I just wanted to let you know that I had my car serviced a little while ago at Lexus Ipswich, and told them about it. They were extremely helpful, and the service manage came out to have a look. He told me (as others have mentioned) that the antenna is built in to the rear glass. Hence it happens when you turn on the mirros/rear windscreen de-mister. Note that if you have an SE-L (or other model with the heated windscreen - the Ford-style little wires integrated in the front windscreen, but only covering the bottom few inches to de-ice the wiper blades) then there is a separate button for activating this front windscreen heating, and therefore I really don't think that the windscreen replacement is connected to your radio reception problems. But then as others have commented, if the radio was definitely fine before, and instantly not right immediately after the replacement then maybe there is a link. But my guess is that it must be a coincidence.

ANYWAY - I digress! I just wanted to say that the advice from the service manager at my local dealers was to really (REALLY) polish the rear windscreen inside and out and get it as shiny as you can. He said this was a common problem on the IS, and that it was caused by muck on the heated elements. To be honest, I never really gave mine a thorough clean to the extent that he suggested, so I never did get it resolved! But I hope this helps you. Good luck!

[timcunnell]

Oh yeah - and another thing. AA Winscreens in Ipswich are absolutely hopeless. If you are in Ipswich and your insurance company propose using them to change yur glass, you should insist they use someone else!

They made an absolute mess of my windscreen replacement, and completely botched a work colleague's too!

[matt-c]

Slightly unfair to tarnish a company because of one or two person's work. What were the problems they caused to yours, and how did they botch your work colleague's car?

[Guest bigbullhead]

Why that's what forums are for to avoid dodgy workmanship!!!!!

[matt-c]

Avoiding dodgy workmanship is fine if you are talking about a particular garage, or a particular place - such as "Mo's Garage" in Stevenage, or "Southeast Tyres" in Hertford (both names made up - no offence to any existing company) however to say AA Autowindshields are crap and they butcher cars is a bit off. Especially with no details about it.

[timcunnell]

Just to qualify my comments about AA Autowindshields - my post did refer specifically to the Ipswich operation. As far as I am aware there is one guy with a van who does the fittings in this area. Certainly the same bloke did my windsrcreen and my colleague's. On my car this guy fitted the trim/seal along the top all wonky and "wavy" like he's just rushed it, and tried to get me to sign a form to say I was happy with the job, while a piece of side trim was sticking up in the air. When I pointed this out he said it would be fine and just glued it down, rather than re-fitting it properly. Since then it has always looked wrong. In the case of my colleague's car the same guy did not re-fit a piece of trim along the top. SHE pointed it out and he told her the peice was not necessary. The next time she drove in the rain she got wet.

So in summary - I was not saying that AA Autowindshields are crap. I am sure they fit the same glass and their fitters on the whole are no different to any other firm. I was saying that the guy operating round my way is crap, and I think I have illustrated through my two examples that I am justified in saying this.

[normski2]

Fair enough Tim. Nicely elaborated.

Perhaps a comment at 'Check a Trade' would give him a nudge, if its do-able.

[matt-c]

A fair point, however to clarify - there isn't an Ipswich operation; AA Autowindshields don't have branches or locations; all the fitters roam from place to place depending on the work available. So it could be a local guy, or it could be someone from further north or further south. My point being, that no-one could possibly know who the fitter is that will be coming (no one, as in from a customers point of view) - it could well be the same guy, or it could be someone completely different. So making people in Ipswich think that the guy coming to do their screen is going to be crap is not very nice, or fair, when it could be a guy from Essex, or Norfolk, or Grays, or London, or wherever, who's going to be doing their car.

In regard to the work; to be fair, you should really check the car over thoroughly before signing to say you are happy with it. It's a bit like checking your change after you leave the shop!

And although it's no excuse for poor fitting/workmanship, the trim along the top of the IS screen - just the same as every other windscreen out there (whether it's a flap up trim like the IS or Golf, or a fit-over trim like the earlier IS, Yaris, Avensis) - bears nothing to do with leaking. It's not a seal; it's merely a trim. It's there to hide the gap between the screen, and the car. Many newer cars don't even have this trim (go look at many Renaults, Audi's, VW's, etc - many of them have whats called floating glass - where there is no trim around the glass at all. If the trim was pertinent to leaking, then all these cars would leak from the factory.

As for your colleague's car leaking; as above this is not down to the trim. This can only be down to poor fitting, and as I said before, there is no excuse for that. Leaking occurs for a number of reasons, but the common factor is the screen not being glued in correctly. The factors can be

- screen not prepared (cleaned and primed) correctly, thus the glue not sticking correctly

- body not prepared (cleaned, or debris being left), thus the glue not sticking properly

- rust on the bodywork giving an insufficient bonding surface

The only exception is of the body work is damaged, such as a vicious dent, that means the glue cannot fill the full height. In most cases this can be rectified at fitting by bending the aperture back into place, and/or adding extra bond at this point. If the damage is too severe for either of these solutions, then the car wouldn't be worked on anyway.

So a leaking screen is down to poor fitting or poor preparation, as I'm sure your colleague's car has not been accident damaged and, assuming it's an IS like yours, or at least a car of similar age, rust won't be the culprit either.

Fortunately, she is covered by the AA's three year warranty on the workmanship of fitting that glass - so her best bet is to call customer services (the number, along with postal address and email address) is on the bottom of the invoice/jobsheet she was given.

Lastly, my source for all of the above - that would be me; windscreen fitter of the past 8 years, having worked for several windscreen replacement companies, including Autoglass and Auto Windscreens, and currently working for AA Autowindshields

[timcunnell]

Fair play Matt. I thought that was a rather detailed reply, and towards the end of that post I was beginning to suspect you may have some affiliation with AA Autowindshields.

I apologise if I've unfairly tarnished the name of The AA. These are only two examples and by one fitter. I am sure this isn't a fair representation of AA's workmanship and service overall, and to be fair, the girl's car that leaked was sorted out very quickly.

As another member has mentioned, forums are surely a place where we can post out views and opinions based on experience. At the same time, others are welcome to take notice, or consider what they read to be total nonsense. If you can't make sweeping and unfair statements on an Internet forum then where can you make them!?

I genuinely hope that people who've read my previous comment will appreciate that I've just had a bad experience, and that they'll use all available resources to form a fair and balanced judgement.