Glass vs Polycarbonate UTV Windshields

Does your UTV have a windshield? Your UTV needs a windshield. They protect you and your passengers from all sorts of crud.

Whether it’s rain, wind, dust, a rooster tail, or a swarm of bugs, you don’t want to hit the trail without a windshield to keep all that crap out of your teeth.

And the fact that you’re here reading this (welcome, by the way) means you’re asking yourself a very important question in the search for your windshield: What is the difference between glass and polycarbonate windshields?

We’re gonna compare each so you can figure out which material is right for your UTV’s windshield.

Comparing Glass and Polycarbonate Windshields

Let’s look at glass and polycarbonate windshields feature by feature to figure out how each of them compares.

Durability

When it comes to durability, there’s really no competition: polycarbonate is stronger.

In fact, polycarbonate is 250 times more impact resistant than glass. That means that if it takes a rock the size of a baseball to break a glass windshield. It would take a rock the size of a large bag of concrete mix moving at the same speed to break polycarbonate.

Let’s look at a few more hypothetical comparisons:

That’s not to say glass windshields won’t protect you from a lot of debris on the trail. The point is, polycarbonate is way stronger. It’ll even handle most rollovers.

The other thing to keep in mind is that laminated safety glass typically doesn’t shatter when it breaks—and neither does polycarbonate. Both are great choices.

And as we’ll see, there are still a lot of good reasons to go with glass.

Clarity and Visibility

When you compare clarity and visibility, glass windshields come out ahead, but only just.

There are a few reasons for that:

1. Glass has less hydrostatic buildup—That means dust doesn’t stick to glass the same way it sticks to polycarbonate.
2. Glass is more scratch resistant than polycarbonate—We’ll get more into what scratch resistance means for each material, but in general, more scratch resistance means fewer microscratches that sparkle in your line of sight.
3. Glass can use windshield wipers—It’s not uncommon for glass windshield wipers to come equipped with a manual or motorized windshield wiper. If you use a wiper on poly, you will scratch it up.

Scratch Resistance

You can’t beat glass when it comes to scratch resistance. It’s as scratch resistant as it gets.

That being said, we do offer most of our polycarbonate windshields with our proprietary XR Optic hard coating. This coating doesn’t make it as tough as glass, but it does maintain clarity longer than untreated poly.

Whether you’re worried about big hits or abrasion from sand, it’s always a good idea to get beefed-up scratch resistance from XR Optic.

Weight and Installation

If you’re concerned about weight, you want polycarbonate.

A polycarbonate UTV windshield weighs a lot less for a few reasons.

• Polycarbonate is half as dense as glass.
• Glass windshields need sturdy metal frames to hold them in place.

Luckily, weight is the only consideration when it comes to installation difficulty, at least when you buy from SuperATV. We make sure both our glass and poly windshields come to your door as preassembled as possible, so installation just takes a few minutes of attaching clamps, gaskets, and seals.

Cost and Value

You can count on a glass windshield costing at least twice as much as an equivalent polycarbonate windshield, even if that poly windshield is hard coated. So you have to consider your use case.

Are you at risk of getting nailed by branches, rocks, and rooster tails at high speed? Go polycarbonate.

Are you gonna cruise around and need protection from rain, dust, and bugs? Glass might be better for you.

We make both windshields in a variety of options, from vented windshields to flip windshields. Although poly generally has a little more variety in the form of half windshields and fitment for a wider variety of UTVs.

The value comes from the appropriate application and use of the windshield, not necessarily the specs.

Choosing the Right Windshield for Your UTV

You should have a good sense of which windshield is right for you by now. Long-term durability on gentle rides goes to glass. This is usually the choice of folks who work more and play less in their side-by-side.

Extreme riding where you anticipate heavy impacts goes to polycarbonate. If you get wild in a sport model, this one’s for you.

So quit reading and get on over to SuperATV.com. We’ve got the polycarbonate windshields you want and the glass windshields you need.