Austin Area TW Chapter (all gens welcome, even T4Rs; heck, just make it a Toyota and we're good)

Went over to my folks' today to throw some parts into my old 03 prerunner for dad. New blend door motor, blower motor, and hvac switch set. Finally feels like I'm not gifting him a busted POS hah. Hope everyone's had/having a good Sunday!

 

You are lucky. I work at the northern safelite off Howard. Today we had 165 booked appts. We're halfway through our 1st 13 day schedule. 1 day off then I believe another 13

 

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Yeah, you are gonna be busy. I wasn't too upset about the dings. Was happy the glass was not damaged. We recently went through 2 windshield replacements. Both were at that Safelite location. I did NOT want to go through that again (issue with the glass, not the people).

 

What happened with the glass?

 

We had rock damage recently. Insurance covered and Safelite installed new glass. The new windshield they installed was horribly distorted. When looking through bottom to top of glass, cars in front would magnify towards the middle. Weird and nauseating effect across the entire pane. Power line and poles would look like they were dancing as you drive along.

We called and complained almost immediately. After a few weeks we finally got the bad glass replaced. We immediately noticed the same issue, but this time only on the driver's side. Not as bad, but still there. The whole thing was bad enough it actually weighed on our decision to get rid of the car. As of this weekend, the Avalon is gone.

Not sure if this issue is common or specific to the car model. I assume Safelite is sourcing 3rd party or OEM-rejects that didn't quite make the cut in new car production.

Staff at the shop were friendly and did good work. I have really positive things to say about Safelite's mobile chip repair as well. However, I would likely discuss alternatives with my Insurance company if I had to go through full glass replacement again.

 

Sorry you had to deal with that.

Odds are, any potential replacement is sourcing their windshields from the same manufacturers. Best you can do is keep arguing with the insurance company/installer. We fought a body shop that was "authorized" to use replacement (non-OEM) bumper covers in fixing my wife's car, and they didn't fit. They replaced it twice - didn't fit. Finally got USAA to approve the OEM cover, and guess what! It fit.



I have to agree with you that a distorted windshield would be a no-go for me. You should never be nauseous driving your own car.

 

Gotcha safelite typically sets you up with aftermarket glass unless you request OEM and if you went through insurance depending on your provider they typically won't approve OEM unless it's a current year +1 vehicle or some other special circumstances. Now with that being said if you had OEM installed we don't source our oem parts from anywhere besides the dealership so if you had a bad glass twice from the dealer you're going to have the same issue at another shop and we'll if it's aftermarket there's a lot of different variables that could be why it was distorted, However the same variables apply to any autoglass shop. Only difference is the other shops might tell you to kick rocks if you think it's distorted.

I will add too. You probably did have some nasty distortion if you noticed it that much but most all windshields are curved glass nowadays so it is impossible to not have distortion just a matter of how much. If it's under a certain percentage it is approved for road use.

 

Pure Auto Glass is the biz to use....

https://www.yelp.com/biz/pure-auto-glass-cedar-park-9

 

Blinked a couple times and the weekend gone

 

On replacement windshields. Look at your windows, and the TOYOTA OEM supplier is listed. I forget the manufacture, but it often $20 more than the discounted glass.

I went through windshields on the Nissan, and the distorted glass sucks!

Good weekend; I got the skid plates installed. Solo work, safety first had jack stands under the frame, but that added to the challenge.

I still have my daily CL feed showing up, a few older 4x4 Toyota trucks were listed. 97 T100 for $6500. It an Automatic, but for 4x4 with the older transfer case and not all the electronics, not a bad deal. Before buying my Taco, I was scanning for months for a "good used truck with 4x4 for backcountry camping" that would have hit the checkboxes or what I wanted.

 

What weekend?

 

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same here, and I was off Friday too

 

Good afternoon ATX! Dropped poor Little Big Red off for the AC replace down in Sequin. A misstep on the path of fixing things that never got touched. AC evac and fill to spec was just too much for it. Oh well, guy only uses new parts and warrants 3 years, which is 3 years longer than my current warranty!
Going to mow - exciting no?

 

Wow now thats funny probably has no clue what it even means

 

It means he wanted a Tacoma but only had $4K.

 

hit it right on the head