This might seem silly, but I have a hard time seeing out my windshield when it's raining! yes, it's clean...yes, my wipers are in good shape....it seems to be something with the angle of the windshield (how "vertical" it is) that makes it hard to see through hard rain. almost to the point where i feel it's dangerous.

sure enough, every time it rains hard here, i have a hard time seeing! unless of course i'm in the minivan. so it's not my eyes, either.

am i the only one to experience this? Rain-X?

 

Rain-X sucks.
You need a new windshield, yours is full of tiny little pits, it happens over time and when it does they rear their ugly little heads at night or in the rain.
Thats why I needed a new windshield, it was pitted.

 

really? whoa. any way to verify this?

 

Yeah mine is getting pitted and on the 97 DI I work on it is awful. What causes this?

 

I know in my freightliner i have to put new windshields in about every year because of the pitting. It almost looks as is if someone sandblasts them i cant see how a disco window would be any different. Eastwood company makes a glass polish its kind of a pain to apply but it takes all the pits and small scratches out. It mite be something to try out before you go and put new glass in.
http://www.eastwood.com/glass-polishing-kit-pro.html

 

Dust and grit of various sizes getting continuously sandblasted into it at 50-60 miles per hour? :-)

You can actually *feel* it, a lot of the time. Properly wash and thoroughly dry your windshield, and then drag your hand over it.

 

I love rain-x, try it before you replace the window, its a cheap solution if it works for you.

 

BEFORE you go down the Rain-X path, there are a couple things you should know.

1) Once it's on there, it will be a year or more before you get it off again.

2) You have to do a *perfect* job putting it on, because if you don't it won't work well enough to allow you not to use your wipers, and once it's on, you won't be *happy* using your wipers; the water films up as the wipers go by and it can actually make it harder to see out.

3) Even when it's working well, it will still leave a pattern of small droplets on the glass at speeds below, say, 40 or 50... and that's not a problem... right up till you drive under a streetlight, at which point your windshield will light up and glow, which makes it sort of hard to see outside.

So Rain-X is not an unmixed blessing, and requires its own maintenance...

 

I notice the same thing when the sun is going down and it hits my glass just right.
Its verrrrry annoying but replacing the windshield is way down my list right now.
I might have to try some sort of finish if it gets any worse. Maybe ill give that eastwood stuff a go.

 

RainEx has pros and cons. I use it in a washer additive form and I find it does help in the rain, quite often in a light rain I don't even use my wipers. But I do find that when you use RainEx and do turn on the wipers it seems like the glass smears for a second with each wipe of the blades which does not help visibility.
.
As mentioned in a previous post I'm going to need to replace my windscreen because of a crack that now runs from the passenger side to the drivers but is at least pretty low. But mine is an original so it is 6 years old and really pitted from all the sand and aggregate trucks that are in my end of town. Plus they just sanded all the bridges from our recent snow fall so there is plenty of new sand on the roads!