Hi guys,
as the years go by rubber trim deteriorates. Used to a BMW where you could get mostly all the parts separately and relatively cheap I am not amused at all seeing Nissan never adopted this logic. A-pillar rubber trim comes only with pillar plastic building up a price tag of 500USD per piece/side and parts are not even painted. I mean Nissan what the hell were you thinking?! Anyhow, this rubber usually deteriorates at the bottom and top of the windscreen where they used different type of rubber and glued in together.


(this photo is borrowed from internet, not actually my car)


Soft and brittle rubber eventually starts to crunch away. Catch it soon enough and you just might fix it. From my motorcycling experience I remember we had to solve a lot of riding boots issues. Boot's sole falling off, leather falling off, boots cracking and so on. 99% of the time this problem was solved using an amazing product called ShoeGoo. It is quite messy, but used with soapy water you can easily shape it. So, having some rubber left I believe you can add this ShoeGoo on top and under it. If you have some rubber left to adhere to.
Just an idea. I haven't tried it but ShoeGoo would be the only product that would resemble rubber properties. I haven't seen any products called "liquid rubber" or similar so this is the closest.






Again I haven't tried it yet. But how would I do it? I would either take A-pillar plastic off. I would mask it well. After that I would place a piece of silicon or soap covered credit card underneath the crunching rubber part. Than apply black ShoeGoo and shape it in that part only. Start from underneath the rubber, push ShoeGoo up through the cracks and flatten it on top.






Right now I have many other detailing areas on the car and my rubber seems to hold up. But eventually as the years go by I'll have to tackle this issue also. And coughing up well over 1.000 USD for a pair of plastic pillars and painting them just doesn't seem sensible to me. So if anyone will try this, share your results and pictures. If this method will prove successful many people will be able to spend 1.000 USD elsewhere or even on other parts rather than a stupid seals which should be sold separately in the first place.

 

Mine are cracking and missing about 2" at the driver's side. I would like to find a solution. Having it like this increases wind noise by a lot IMO.

 

The owner before me used black silicone/ rtv, to seal up that area. It will be difficult to get a smooth finish, but it works.

 

I took the rubber weather stripping off an old door panel and cut it to the length and shape and sort of wedged it underneath the same deteriorating pieces. It's noticeable if you are looking for it, but otherwise you'd never see it. It stopped the wind noise. Might use like some black RTV to seal it better or get it to stick if the piece is missing all together.

 

Similar.

 

Does anyone know if replacing the windshield they would reseal these areas with their own weather stripping? It seems to me they would have to remove all the old factory stuff.

 

They seal the windshield just not replace the deteriorated pieces that everyone complains about. At least Safelite doesn't.

 

Bringing a few of these threads back from the dead as I am getting ready to replace my windshield (again) as well. I know Safelite won't do anything about it. At least, they never have in the past. I was hoping to ask them again as they need to order my windshield and it won't be here for a couple of days.

Similar to what Mr Sparco did, I was thinking about adding a small piece of EPDM or black silicon trim to the piece while they had it removed. I was actually thinking about bringing it there with both sides off already so I had to play around with it and hopefully come up with some kind of solution.

I'll keep you posted...