[SideView]

Cant imagine how the situation will be during night drives. Very dangerous!

[saket77]

A rogue ASC once changed the front windshield to a floated glass type windshield (& not laminated one) and I had the same issue. After some hassle, they had to replace it with a proper laminated windshield and it solved the problem.
Hope is it not the same issue here- of a changed windshield which may have been damaged in transit.

[Rodie09]

Still surprised that if its a windshield issue no one considered resolving the issue with windshield - neither OP nor dealer. Quite strange.

Straight away a change of car which we see not happening even with serious power train issues

[anjan_c2007]

Yes a weird thread but concur with your assertions if the defect is genuine.

Firstly, Kia agreed to replace your car which is a great gesture on their part that's rare to come by from car makers.

But rather than replacing the whole car Kia needed to have internally done QC checks on the front and rear windscreen glasses from its current batches that could have had manufacturing defects. They needed to have questioned the vendor and if necessary for the optical illusion, blacklisted the company.

And if such manufacturing defects are detected in the current batches of cars there is need for a recall. Maybe your thread now public, is commented upon by similarly affected owners and that could prompt a recall of all such cars for windscreen replacements.

The glass vendor and the QC guys at Kia should be liable for their acts and deeds. Next the dealer and his men who have the gall to recommend eye testing for the customer need to be condemned.

[smoes]

Got my Seltos delivered earlier this week and I checked if I can see similar distortion after seeing this post. Tried for 10-15 mins but can't find any issues (Tested in daylight with a few 2wheelers parked in front of me and good amount of moving traffic in between the car and the parked vehicles).

So OP's issue is probably a localized one either with that specific car or a certain batch of windscreens.

[NomadSK]

Well I tried to replicate the scenario in my vehicle today, while driving at a steady speed and looked across the windshied at different angles. However, at an angle (towards the passenger side) to the solid line on the edge of the road and it apperead to have a "wave like pattern" around 3-4" from the edge of the glass. This is the First time I have noticed such a thing, probably that area hardly comes under field of view, even if it comes, the optical focus is generally at something else and speed is genreally very slow.

My take, probably refraction of the light near the corners of the windshield which is slightly curved at the edges/corners.

OP - I would be more interested to know how this wavy nature is when the field of view is straight and not at some extreme angles.

[alpha1]

Please don't mind this but your car windshield looks just like those cheap sunglasses with plastic lens (which cause headache).

There is obviously a huge distortion evident in the video you have uploaded, unfortunately ignored by most of the poster on this thread.

The only way of doing a thorough test (for reporting purpose) is to use a grid pattern and observe the reflection and refraction off the outer and inner surface of the glass areas. Now which workshop would be having a tool (perhaps laser based) to do this evaluation?

[svsantosh]

Originally Posted by Rehaan

Actually it took me quite a few watches, and OP's prompt of "blue scooter" to actually see that the distortion ...

My friend was a Production Manager at Saint Gobain Chennai plant around 2001-2006/7, we then met @ Bangalore IT sector. Download this file and play it to understand what is causing this defect. Surprised he still remembers his old job as if it was yesterday. He quit that industry nearly 17-18 years ago.

Bottomline, it was a defective piece that was escaped various stages of its life. The glass maker missed it, car maker missed it, showroom missed it! Sad to know.

saint gobain.zip

(zipped it because he sent a voice message over whats-app, cannot add voice messages in TBhp).

[Sufficient_shop]

Originally Posted by svsantosh

Download this file and play it to understand what is causing this defect.

Bottomline, it was a defective piece that was escaped various stages of its life. The glass maker missed it, car maker missed it, showroom missed it! Sad to know.

Attachment 2503920

Interesting info! What's surprising is both cars (one delivered 2 weeks later) have the same issues. Also, OP mentioned that the two cars were manufactured in different months. This should be more widespread than just one customer, dealer, one city.

[SeniorC]

Dealer replacing the car ! Unheard of. Something very very wierd. Was it registered in the owner's name?

Please do test drives at other dealerships in Dehradun or nearby cities. There have been a number of YouTube review videos and none have pointed this out.

[Yesterdaysnews]

The dealer taking back a new vehicle and pushing it on to someone else after someone has taken delivery and driven it around, with Kia in the know?!

Isn’t that absolutely, absolutely unethical and unfair to the party the car has gone to now?

OP, would you accept a vehicle from a dealer if informed it was previously delivered to someone else and driven about for just 10/20 km and they didn’t want it for whatever reason? Not at all saying it’s your fault that the dealer and Kia did so, though!

I think this thread must be highlighted just for that!

[BoneCollector]

That's a clear faulty windshield with a lot of distortion. I've seen similar issue in a replacement windshield of a Wagon R belonging to someone in family. The original windshield was damaged and the replacement windshield had distortion. But the owner of the car was OK with it so he didn't get it changed again.

In this case, the eyes are not at fault but the glass definitely is. Since 2 cars had same issue, the whole batch of windshields provided to Kia may be faulty.

[theabstractmind]

I certainly believed the OP. It is possibly a QC defect unnoticed because it was in an inconspicuous area. Some people from 90s would possibly have experienced this - some windshields would have bars resembling rollers. They could be due to non OEM glasses. Such defects get magnified when there is water on the glass. In this case, assuming it is an OEM glass, there is no reason to discount the LP's statement especially after seeing the video that it could be a QC issue - possibly with a particular batch.

[anjan_c2007]

The freak windscreens need to henceforth be a part of our PDI and prior to that the test drive inspections. Rather than PDI, it needs to be a thumbrule for all prospective car buyers to check windscreens too, while they zero upon the one of their choice.

Luckily, all two wheeler buyers are exempted.*

(*other than those who buy two wheelers with large visors or windscreens)

[DoonDude]

Thank you everyone for your time and inputs !
My main aim for this thread was to know if there are other Seltos owners (especially the facelift version GTX / GTX+) versions who are facing similar issues so that we may understand the general trend and force the company to make a recall to provide windshield replacements to the affected parties.

This is a serious safety issue that needs to be addressed promptly if widespread !

Both the cars that I drove have the same issue. I'm finally about to take delivery of the 2nd car tomorrow and will update this thread in a couple of days once I drive the car around in different lights and environments for longer periods.

BTW, I did have my eye test yesterday at Titan. No change in the power (0.5) since past 15 years

I did approach a couple of new car owners in a local shopping mall over the past few days. They both had the lower trim (HTK / HTK+) and did not seem to notice this issue. However, their windshields DID have heavy distortion in the bottom 2 inch strip across the entire glass pane. This generally does not affect the driving but does speak volumes of the quality of the glass used !