Miata Mailing List: July 1995, Message #791
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   From: lindberg@vss.fsi.com (Drew Lindberg)
Subject: Rear window browning
   Date: Mon, 17 Jul 1995 14:20:24 -0400


A week ago I put my hardtop on for a weekend drive from St. Louis
to Toledo and back.  And then I left it on for the week because
I was washing/waxing the car the next weekend and wanted to wax
the hardtop (which has been neglected because it's never on when
it's nice outside).  Anyway, it got up to 100 for most of the week
here in St. Louis and even though I placed a white sheet over the
interior during the day (without cracking the windows - shame on me)
to keep the sun off the interior and window, when I took the hardtop
off yesterday, the rear window had browned considerably.  There were
small brown dots on it before (that Meguiar's #10,#17 didn't take
care of) that were bigger.  BTW, the window was in the BLACK
(good cooking color) window protector purchased from
Miata Marketing.  I was crushed.  My poor baby.

Anyways, even though I haven't seen an easy solution to this
problem in the mailing list, I'm ready to try a few things before
I spend $300 to replace the rear window.  Here's a few of my
ideas.  Has anyone tried these?  Any successes?  Failures?
(This is a '90 A with 52,000 miles, daily driven)

o  Get some of that plastic tinting stuff and attach it (does it
   glue or what?) to the rear window to hide the "natural"
   tinting with unnatural tint.

o  Use some abrasive wax (Meguiars #2) on the outside of the
   window (where much of the brown seems to be), then try to
   smooth out the new scratches with Meguiars #10 & #17.
 
o  Any luck in finding the replacement plastic?  I mean ripping
   out the factory clear plastic window and gluing in a piece of
   similarly shaped plastic.  Or maybe a piece of plexiglass
   would work.  (Admittedly a radical solution)

o  Any other home remedy for clearing up a browning back plastic
   window (that does not require a time machine? ;)

Well, the more I type about this problem, the more I'm ready to
spring for the $300 glass rear-window replacement.

PS  Do people know that you can turn the radio's lights off?
    With the headlights on, push the right knob (tone
    adjuster) for half a second, and the radio's lights go
    off.  Another right knob push turns the lights back on.
    This doesn't work with just the running lights on.  Not
    that useful unless you want a dark cockpit on a long
    drive - just to break up the monotony.
 
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|    /| _         ___|_          | Drew Lindberg                   |
|   / |/ | _  O   _  |  _        | lindberg@vss.fsi.com            |
|     /  |/ | |  / | | / |       | FlightSafety Int'l              |
|    /      |/ \/\_/\|/\_/\_     |                                 |
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