Looks awful but like I say, from the side you can't really see any issue, maybe a delamination problem??

I don't see how you could cause delamination by polishing the external surface? Most microscratches on glass are caused by fine grit on wiper blades. I have obtained jeweller's rouge (iron oxide powder) sold for the purpose, but I'm sure things like that can only shift the finest of microscratches. I have found it useful for removing stains which normal glass cleaners won't deal with.

Maybe ask the experts if you have a local glass specialist - Autoglass ?

sadly I tend to agree with your windscreen guy, the haze you can now see are microscopic scratches, you could try one of those kits available for for restoring plastic headlights or even a mild polish ( autoglym) or of course it could "get" broken and replaced via insurance......

Well that was a strange one. Decided to try a quick polish with some Meguires windscreen cleaner I had lying about without holding out much hope but with the rationale 'well I may as well try something"

Weirdly it worked! After 20mins hard elbow grease, all the opaque patches are gone. Must have been residue from the abrasive paste which had dried on with the heat from the polishing machine.

Now all I have to worry about is the replacement turbo for the golf but that arrived this morning and having managed to source the OEM part for £350 less than I was quoted from the local VAG dealer I'm slightly happier or at the very least slightly less p****d off than I was this time yesterday!

And have the original scratches gone?

Word of advice, if trying any future 'internet recommendations', try it first on a small area where it won't be so noticeable if it doesn't work as expected!.

This stuff will polish out scratches from glass. it worked very well removing scratches from an watch glass but it took quite a lot of rubbing.

www.ebay.co.uk/itm/RDGTOOLS-2-X-5-GRAM-DIAMOND-LAP...Q

If I were to use it on windscreen I would try something like this on a cordless drill.

www.ebay.co.uk/itm/7Pcs-Buffing-Pad-Polishing-Mop-...5

While there are some pretty huge watches these days, for the most part they are quite small compared to the size of thew average car windscreen!.

Mixing threads here BBD, but the classic car show near me in Errol between Perth and Dundee had a lot of very interesting 'unexceptional' classics (and some Morris Marinas) as well as the more glam and historic stuff which made for a great day out a few weeks back, if you could manage down the A90 next year?

There are actually quite a few decent classic car shows in my area and there are inevitably going to be some cars which would fit into the same category as the 'unexceptional', just not that many of them. So it is for sheer numbers that i'd like to go to the Festival of the Unexceptional.

Having said that, after the holidays, my youngest is about to start attending college in Glasgow, so something might be worked going to or from dropping him off/picking him up re visiting your local show!.

Thanks for that but I think my days of attacking windsceens with anything stronger than Autoglym or Meguires are now behind me!