Windshield

[pez]

I just had my front windshield replaced yesterday.....this was the 2nd time since I have owned my '76 450se [I live in Colorado, where a new windshield every year is standard].  Cost was $148 installed. 1st time around it was PPG glass, which I was not too impressed with....I thought it pitted easily. This time the glass supplied is Pilkington, which I believe is a very high quality glass used by BMW & M-B.

Either way, I have to say that I am much more concerned with seeing clearly than a factory logo on the glass....also, my glass place tells me that the windshield for a w116 is also the same for a w123....add the production #'s of those cars together, and you can see why the glass is plentiful and cheap.

Be sure to replace your seal, too.

Also of note, the glass shop won't do my car in the lot as they usually do for most cars....most cars take about 30 minutes to change the front glass....they need 3 people and 1/2 a day to do a w116 correctly, due to the super tight fit of the seal in to the body...it seems that the glass goes into the seal, then the whole assembly gets pressed into the body...this is different than new cars, where the glass is glued to the car.

[zedster]

I think I was quoted $300 to replace the glass and the seal. The seal was almost as much as the glass. Once I get it replaced I am thinking of picking one of these up:

Mercedes-Benz Classic Windshield Decal

[Maat1985]

dont know if it is original but all my glass all round the car is mercedes glass so if not original OEM replacement..... i too am looking at a getting a new windscreen and i must say it never even came to mind to go to the extent of having original glass..... IMO glass is glass and tints look better than clear anyways.....

[Squiggle Dog]

I don't think the W116 and the W123 share the same windshield. The EPC lists them having different part numbers and I know for sure they use a different seal.

I have had the windshield replaced in my 1979 300SD W116 3 times in a year and every time was a disaster. Each time the installers took about 2-3 hours to install it and could not get it pressed in all the way (there was a lot of old sealant still on the pinchweld area, duh!).

Every time it leaked and required several follow-ups, non of which could get the leaks to stop. All of the glass got chipped and pitted within weeks and ended up cracking.

When I had Safelite do it, I had to go back 5 TIMES and it still leaked, so I got a tube of 3M bedding compound and sealed it myself. They told me they went through 3 tubes of it the last time to try to get it to not leak. Well, that's what happens when it doesn't fit on the body and you have gaps between the seal and the body. I even spent the $130USD on the OEM seal....

Next time I will just do it myself. Seriously.

[orangebuddha]

I've had exactly the same question of which windscreen to use when i needed to change the windscreen on my W123.
The car still had the original Sekurit one, but it had a 1cm crack near the rear view mirror, out of the line of sight. It had actually been like that for maybe the past 8 years, but as it was out of the line of sight, and it was not noticeable so i left it.

Then the corners of the windscreen started to develop small rust spots, and after a long think about whether i wanted to keep the car or not (we'd had it for 24 years already....). I decided to keep the car and fix the rust, and at the same time change the seal and windscreen.

In the end I went with an original MB windscreen (from Sigla complete with the star and an MB holographic sticker) in the end as i couldn't find an aftermarket one that either didn't have the blue band on top or the black band around the screen, or both. The Sekurit one didn't have any bands and i wanted to keep the look of the car.

FYI for the W123 there were actually 3 different windscreens depending on location. The Australian cars (where i am) have a slight blue tinting - you can see it if you hold a white piece of paper behind the screen. In Europe they used what MB calls a "crystal clear" screen (assume without any tinting), and haven't figured out what/where the 3rd one is/was for.

Yes the way its changed is to put the glass into the seal first, and then with a rope, lever it into position and sikaflex it. The guy that changed the screen will only use genuine MB seals as he reckons there aren't any aftermarket seals that fit perfectly. He probably took an hour to replace the windscreen.

Yes there is a significant price difference between an original windscreen and an aftermarket one (and the MB price even went up during the time I was getting quotes!!!!), but in the end keeping the same look was important to me, especially as most of the car is still original.

[s class]

24 years is probably a record here on this forum.  We'd love to see pictures. 

I've owned my 280SE for 12 years - not too bad considering I'm 34 now. 

[zedster]

Sekurit is the original I believe and I recently visited a guy that had a 6.9 (same color as mine, grey blue metallic) with a replacement Sigla windshield. I wonder who can get this glass in the states?

[alabbasi]

New glass costs around $150-250 depending on whether they can re-use the weatherstrip. I don't personally care if it says MB or Aftermarket on it. It's a wear item like tires and therefore originality is not important to me in that aspect (I'm not buying v rated tires for them either). I would avoid used windshield. They de-laminate and get weaker of time and are more likely to break.

[Desert fox]

Hello,
A new German sourced windscreen plus a new rubber surround costs around US$800.
Regards,
N.

[zedster]

Hello,
A new German sourced windscreen plus a new rubber surround costs around US$800.
Regards,
N.

details?

[craigb]

Just an additional comment that might help. I was at a local guys place who restores and resilvers lights ( he has the tools for removing and replacing the glass from conventional headlight units) and also makes led retro fit globes. He is into MG's and a lot of his work is on old english lights. He regularly visits the UK and picks up old light units to restore because the glass is good in them. He says it is all to do with dust sand blasting them. In the UK or other wetter climates there is less days with less dust/grit on the roads to be thrown up and blast your car. He is generally a very knowledgable - no bullshit kinda guy - but I have no scientifically valid experimental data to prove that this is true.

Oscar's comment about his Canberra car made me think of that - being a bit wetter there? Or maybe the guy just happened to get a NOS screen fitted just before it went off the road.

Anyway, I mentioned it in case people want to checkout what is in wreckers in the wetter states.... but then they are probably delaminated! (and there you go again - they don't really wreck them - the people who pranged it did that - they break them up for the useful parts...... ie. they are breakers!  And I am guessing all Oz phone books are the same but the heading in our yellow pages is "automotive parts recyclers" but that is just going too far!!)

[Takernz]

my 280S is equipped with greenish heat insulated safety glass as confirmed in the option code stamped in the radiator support. The front and rear glass are SIGLA, the rest had SEKURIT on them. Well, these will help to reduce the cooling load load of my car's AC and not dark enough to drive at night.

I thought all of them have SEKURIT, glass just like my W110 200 had SEKURIT glass all over, the glass from these W111 and W110 cars are thicker. Had been struck by small stone while driving on the highway and it didn't chip or crack but I have to back off and stay away from trucks that carrying gravel in front of me.