coppens1 wrote: ↑Sat Dec 03, 2022 12:44 pm
I took the car to a couple of body shops, and they told me the problem was because of an improperly installed replacement windshield. But I haven't heard this from other contributors.
Today, I FINALLY had room in the shop AND our buddy/friend, who does windshields for a living,
CONFIRMED that my 2004 Vibe windshield was NOT OEM and that it was improperly replaced by "who knows" and due to the improper installation, caused it to rust out and thus eventually leak. Very thin bead of caulk/sealant on top of a likely scratched/scraped exposed metal lip, from them scraping the original windshield out, is what happened. With the bead being very thin, it barely gripped the glass in some areas AND did not allow room for "flexing" with the car. When attempting to cut out the old bead, he noticed some areas where it was damn near glass on metal, which made it almost impossible for him to get his cutting tools in there to safely remove it. Unfortunately he "cracked the windshield in the process of removing it. He said this was one of the more difficult windshields that he removed in his 25+ years of working in the glass industry.
Pics of todays progress below ..................................
My Vibe's resting place for the next few weeks. Inside the paint booth.
That's some nasty rust under there
Looks even worse when up close
Windshield removal GONE wrong !!!
Luckily, it did NOT rust through all the way .... yet anyways! The rust started out at the base or "under" the sealant and then spread upward until it became visible just past the seal. I just quickly scraped & burred the rust away to see wow bad it was. Will likely sandblast some of this too, to where I get solid metal exposed.
Our Vibe's headliner, acts like a channel/gutter and the water collected in it and ran either left or right (depending on the incline and where the leak was located from) and collected onto the A-pillar. The back side of the headliner is water repellant thus it doesn't show any signs of leakage until it spills over at the drive or pass pillars.
More progress coming in the next few weeks ...................................