Aleš Lombergar

All windshields have three layers. You have a glass in the inside and a another glass in the outside. Both of these glass sandwich a strong vinyl called PVB (poly Vinyl butry), in language terms it’s a strong lamination. When impact accrues in the outer glass, the lamination is intact to hold the break together, resulting in a crack. Tempered glass, when made is in a state of compression. It’s made in very hot temperatures then it’s rapidly cooled this is why when it breaks it’s in pieces, which is called dicing. Tempered glass can only be found in your side and back glass. The purpose for temped glass is for safety evacuation in case of a emergency where the doors won’t open and the only way out is thur the window, temper glass makes it easier to break in such cases. Now these days more and more luxury cars are coming out with laminated side window, but only the two front side window will be laminated for instance the Mercedes Benz S500. So the bottom line is YES the front windshield is laminated by law according to FMVSS (Federal Motor vehicle Safety Standard). I hope i resolve your argument

i don’t know about laminated or tempered but i know that windshields have 2 layers of glass with a plactic in between

Side and rear windows = tempered and not laminated
Windshield = laminated and NOT tempered. (for strength)
If the windshield was tempered, and a rock from a truck hit it the whole windshield would turn into thousands of little pieces.
I don’t think they make tempered AND laminated glass.

It depends on the make and model of the car. Recently there has been a move away from fully tempered glass because of the possibility for spontaneous and violent failure due to thermal instability from the tempering process. So new cars instead use a combination of “heat treating” and polymer lamination to strengthen the glass. There is a difference in “Heat treat” and “fully tempered” glass based on the amount of surface compression after each process (fully tempered is “stronger” with a higher surface compression but is much less stable). You can tell which of these was done by looking for the stamp on the glass near one of the corners.

FT or TF = Fully tempered
HT = Heat treated

[...] vs. Laminated Glass – Crashworthiness Auto Glass: Laminated Versus Tempered What is Tempered Glass? Is a windshield for a car made of Tempered Glass? | Ale I also checked all our other vehicles (a Mazda 6, Montero Sport, Tucson, Impreza, Swift, Jazz, [...]