1998 v70 Windshield Tint Light Splatter At Night

[MrAl]

Hello again,

Another unusual problem for this unusual car.

When driving at night, there is a noticeable splatter of light when there is a point source of light in front of the car such as another car headlight coming toward the car on the other side of the road.

The light pattern that normally produces some glare produces little beams of needle thin light rays that seem to emanate from the light source. It looks like as the light passes though the windshield the light disperses in an usual way and thus makes it harder to see things clearly at night.

The tinting itself is very light, almost not noticeable in the day time. At night it does not reduce light much either, but just produces those annoying light patters of rays. It looks almost like a star burst or something.

I do not know what kind of tinting it is, factory or installed later. All i know it is a very very light tinting, almost not noticeable.

Any ideas what this is all about now, or how to get rid of that effect?

Would really appreciate some ideas. Thanks.

[E Showell]

Guessing it is not tinting at all, but typical pitting on a 17 year old windshield.

[MrAl]

Hello ES,

Thanks again for your suggestions.

I will check for this next time i go out there.
I assumed it was the tinting because i have read elsewhere on the web that this could be an issue with tinting, although that seems to come up when the tinting is added aftermarket. I dont know who tinted this car however, so i dont know how it was done.
I'll have to look more closely i guess and do a couple light beam or laser tests.

[E Showell]

Mine's funny. Depending on the angle of refraction, I've got so many small nicks that even in broad daylight, the windshield can be less than crystal clear.

[MrAl]

Hello again,

I found that part of the problem was that there was a very fine dust on the outside of the windshield, so fine you couldnt see it without looking very close.

Cleaning that off helped, but didnt solve the problem entirely. This is the strangest thing i have ever seen. For example, i pulled up in the Wendy's drive up window line when it was dark out, and the car in front of me had square tail lights, made up of small red LED's, so it formed a grid pattern of maybe 10 wide by maybe 12 high (120 red LED's). What you see when you look at this tail light through the windshield is the original 10x12 set of LEDs, plus another set off to the right, plus another set off to the left, plus one set on top and one set on bottom, roughly speaking. The seconds sets are not quite as bright as the original, but still certainly visible.
It is mostly apparent with bright lights and does not show up unless there are bright lights on when it is dark outside.

Make any sense?
My guess is that the tint is causing an internal reflection, inside the glass itself, so i am seeing mirror images of the original, although somewhat dimmer. Needless to say this sucks.

[abscate]

Welcome to the wonderful world of optics. Your windshield is made up of many layers of glass and plastic, and LEDS are much more like point sources than old style light bulbs, so you see many more optical effects like these. Each interface will reflect a few percent of the light and with point sources the ghost images are much more noticeable. I can holographic ally pattern your windshield with a moth eye anti reflection coating with a spare semiconductor etcher I have in my basement for a couple of 10,000 bucks if it's really bothersome....

( worked on this with Polaroid in the 90s)

[E Showell]

Steve, you'be done that to all your car's, right?

[abscate]

The cost was the problem. We could make a windshield with no reflections but it added hundreds of dollars to cost. In the auto business , if you add a nickle to costs, they throw you off the top,floor of the building.

[MrAl]

Hi,

Yeah but this didnt happen with my other cars, and not my more recent Hyundai. Nothing like that at all. So why would this happen with this car? The only difference i can see so far is that the windshield has a slight tint whereas the Hyundai had none.
I wonder if there is any way to remove the tint. I have read that the tint reduces inside temperature in the sun though.

[JRL]

Claybar the windshield, then polish with a glass polish or glass wax and see how much better it becomes.
(You can also use RainX instead of glass wax)