The body shop had to remove the back window to fix the rust damage on the lower part of window. In doing so, they snapped the clips off that attach to the defrost lines in the rear window glass. How do I reattach these wires? Just glue them back up or am I SOL?
Permatex is your friend here
Use rear view mirror adhesive to attach the tabs back to the window then use defroster grid repair compound to reattach the electrical connection
The defroster compound is a copper based paint like liquid applied with a brush
I have done it this way in the past and it worked great
Sounds to me like the body shop has something they need to fix. Also I've heard you can heat the rear window with a heat gun and solder them back on there. Never tried it sounds like it would take some time to get the window warm enough to heat the one spot hot enough. Make sure you let it sit in the sun to help get that window warmed up.
There is a specific repair kit available to reattach the metal clips and is available at most O'Reilly and Pep Boy type parts stores.
I think I spent about $12 on one last year. It consists of a little bit of sand paper to clean things up and some type of epoxy which provides the adhesion and electrical connection. It worked great for me.
A tip to make it a less annoying: Do it the shade on a cool day. There's not a lot of room back there and it get's really hot fast!
Frankly, with the age of our cars, such mishaps are going to happen. Things get brittle, and it isn't the fault of the bodyshop.
Shiny Side Up!
Bill
Yeah one of mine broke off and eventually I will work on this little detail using the Permatex repair kit that works just fine.