After 158,000 miles of chips and scratches and a recent heavy impact with a hefty crow, today it was time for my Porsche Cayenne to enjoy a windscreen replacement. My insurers have an agreement with Autoglass, so I set up an appointment and waited for the fitter to arrive.

The crow incident had cracked the screen from top to bottom, so it needed replacing. Having used some of the big windscreen removal companies a few times, and seen how their rush job fitters can make a bit of a hash of things, in the past I have bought the glass and bonding adhesive to do my own cars. However, this was a big bit of glass so not an easy one-man job, and the top tint and auto wiper sensor made the screen pretty expensive. Better to let the professionals do it, with a little bit of help to lift the glass in.

The Autoglass guy came early and took a bit of time deciding where best to carry out the work. Rain was on the way and he needed to line his van up perpendicular to the Porsche, to be able to use the side-mounted awning if needed. There was no space on the street to do this, so he decided to park the car just inside the gates on my soon-to-be-driveway, with the nose sticking out of the gates. We took a bit of time to get the Cayenne level and it all worked out OK.

Ezi-Wire patented windscreen seal cutting tool

My last windscreen change was done by a local guy who cut the screen out of my Spec B Subaru Legacy estate using hand-held knife blades. He had to strip half the interior trim to do the job properly. The Cayenne’s windscreen replacement was made easier by the use of an ‘Ezi-Wire’ device mounted to the inside of the screen (above), which gently pulled a high tensile steel cable through the windscreen adhesive and made a very tidy job of it. Apparently the Ezi-Wire is an Autoglass/Carglass/Belron patented tool, so no wonder I hadn’t seen it before.

The Ezi-Wire uses a pair of winding spools, controlled by a hand ratchet. The twin spools cut from opposite directions and allow controlled “slip cutting”, which enables the cable to slice through the bonding seal rather than the seal having to be cut with a hard-to-control hand knife, so the work is much less risky. The Autoglass technician had a van full of tools, but reckoned the Ezi-Wire helped him do most jobs right first time, with no damage to the vehicle.

From start to finish, the whole thing took two hours including two cups of tea and plenty of chat. I am delighted with the finished product: you can’t beat a new windscreen to lift the driving experience. Also delighted that I had Dick’s thirty years of glass fitting experience here to do the work. I did find a small bit of surface rust in the top right corner of the Cayenne’s windscreen aperture, but I cleaned it up and ground the rust out before adding a bit of Kurust treatment. It was then finished with an anti-rust primer before the windscreen was fitted.