Prius vulnerability to front windshield cracks

Sounds like a bit of bad luck, rather than any inherent vulnerability. It happens to all cars. The Honda CRV I replaced with the Prius had a windshield replaced about a year before I sold it, only to suffer another chip just before I sold it. I've had no problems with the Prius after 2.5 years.

Your comprehensive insurance should cover replacement, less your deductible. I don't know that it's so important to get OEM glass as it is to use a reputable glass shop. You want quality work, of course, and a good shop will use good materials.

 

Which dealer?

 

the same safety glass is used in the prius as any other car. windshield chips make for windshield cracks, it's just a matter of how long you luck out before it happens. your insurance should be covering this, not your car's warranty.

 

Every cracked windshield that I have ever had always started from a chip within an inch of the edge of the glass. The windshield is under more stress near the edges, especially the bonded windshields that are used in modern cars.

I got a rock ding within the first month of owning the Prius, but it is about 9 or 10 inches away from the nearest edge. No crack so far.

I also have an 11 year old Ford Explorer that has 3 fairly large rock dings that were in the windshield when I bought it 9 years ago. I always planned to replace the windshield whenever it gets a running crack, but it never has. All of the dings are 5 inches or more from the nearest edge.

Your comprehensive policy on your auto insurance should cover a new windshield since it was the result of a rock ding.

 

This is not true.

The Prius comes with "High Solar Energy-Absorbing (HSEA) glass."

So the OEM glass does some work preventing the fading of interior surfaces and keeping the interior a bit cooler than your half price quotes will.

I don't know if whatever they've done to enhance the radiation absorption has also made the glass more brittle and prone to cracks, but it may be something to look into.

 

I've replaced two windshields. One on a Dodge and one on a Cadillac. Both were done by independent shops and covered by insurance.

 

All the dealer does is send it down the street for those guys to do anyway. Actually that other place drives to the dealership and does it on the car dealership lot. Save the money, ask the dealer who they use to replace windshields then eliminate the middleman.

 

Just sounds like bad luck.
I livve in Vegas, and it gets REALLY hot! Been over 120 in the shade and no cracking problems. No chips in the winshield though, which, knock on wood, aint bad for 145,000 miles.

 

I wouldn't worry about the expertise. I would worry about whether the glass provided is comparable to the Toyota glass.

If you file an insurance claim then you only have to pay the deductible, so you'd might as well get the Toyota glass.

 

...which is not unique to the prius at all.

 

Move to FL where windshield glass is 100% covered. No deductible with comprehensive. Aftermarket glass can be purchased with shading at the top. I wish mine would crack so I can upgrade it for free.

 

Certainly not, but it's also not "the same as any other car." It's very likely that if he's got an estimate for half of dealer price they're not going to be using HSEA glass.

In another thread here a PriusChatter talks about calling an auto glass replacement company to ask about HSEA glass and they had no idea what he was talking about.

:yo:

 

The xB that I traded in to get my Prius was the worst for rock chips. I had to call my insurance company so many times about my windshield that they were expecting me to call every month.

 

we had our prius for less than a week when a rock hit the windshield. i was on the cell phone with my daughter and it was so loud she heard the hit......no chip, no crack. i do not know....we were suckers and had that diamond fusion stuff applied. i read about it after we had it done and most said it was crapola. i feel like it saved our windshield because ive had smaller rocks hit other windshields and they cracked right away.

 

I just had a chip at the upper edge of my '06 Prius windshield (in the painted area, not visible from the inside) crack, and had to have the windshield replaced. I also had a crack in the interior of the windshield, that has been there longer, which remained stable.

The installer advised that chips at the edge are much more likely to crack because, when it gets hot, there's a bigger differential in temperature between the inner layer of glass and the outer layer of glass (because of the black paint, or proximity to the black paint). He likened it to the process of cutting glass -- you score it on one side, and push from the other. The chip serves the role of the score, and thermal expansion of the inner layer of glass (at a higher rate than the outer layer) serves as the pressure to crack the glass.

This seemed a very rational explanation of the physics, so I believe it.

So on (1), no I don't believe there's any inherent defect in the Prius windshield.

Regarding (2), I've replaced many windshields with aftermarket glass, without any problem. However, I did have a problem, for the first time, replacing the windshield on my Prius. I considered the piece of glass to be defective, in that there was a small, slight bad spot in the glass, close to the center of the driver's view, which caused a small area of distortion. It was subtle, but I noticed something wasn't right on my first drive in the vehicle afterward. (My wife did not notice it.)

Now mind you, between wife, kids, etc., I've had roughly 15 cars in my ~25 years of driving, have replaced many windshields, and have driven probably closer to 100 cars, including rentals -- and I've never noticed a problem like this before.

What was even more noticeable was the very significant distortion extending at least 6 inches in from the sides of the windshield. You couldn't help but see this anytime you were making a right turn. (Being close to the left edge, it wasn't much of an issue on left turns.)

The installer agreed to replace the windshield. It was an insurance job, and I was ready to tell my insurer I needed OEM glass for the replacement, but the installer said they'd take care of it (don't know if there was some reason why they didn't want my insurer to know about the problem), so they got me an OEM piece of glass under warranty for the repair. (Actually, first they wanted to try a different brand -- and I was ok with that, since I've done well with aftermarket glass in the past -- but they weren't able to find another brand that supplied the windshield, so they went ahead and got the OEM glass.)

The difference in the two pieces of glass was night and day. Perhaps the piece of glass I got was truly defective. But I'm suspicious that this was potentially a bigger quality issue than just a single piece of defective glass.

What shocked me, though, was the cost differential between the aftermarket and OEM glass, in this case. The invoice for the original installation showed the glass costing less than $150. The invoice for the warranty repair showed the cost of the OEM glass at $1000 -- which struck me as ridiculous!

 

racerbob beat me too it. In FL comp covers the windshield with NO deductible. Chk if Calif does similar.

 

I have a quarter sized fusion on the windshield on my Honda Civic now. This is the 3rd windshield on this car; darn rocks off of trucks make a ding and if you don't get it fixed quickly, the crack develops and you need a whole new one.

My insurance pays 100% for the fusion; OR after the deductible, for the windshield. THEY were the ones pointed me to the fusion this time around.

 

I completely understand your windshield frustration. I have had mine for a year and have had two rock chips replaced and now a windshield. The last comparable size car I had was an Acura Integra and it never had chips or cracks in the 10 years I had it. I've just lowered my total deductible because of this windshield problem. The mobile glass shop said that it may be the angle of the windshield that is just inviting rock damage... they just don't bounce off as well. I'm pretty frustrated too.