What Have You Done To Your 3rd Gen Today?

Shout out to @tonered for 3d printing me a block off plate for the center portion of the lightbar area on my BA slimline bumper.

 

No joke, the only time I tried Safelight was for my old 99 Accord (old reliable, peeling paint ugly - just go cheap right?) HOLY SHIT did they fuck that thing up, warped the cowl all over the place, just terrible. Will never use those jalopies again, even for an older car. I'd be so upset if this was mine.

 

Very clean! Even knowing what I was looking for it took me a couple seconds to find it.

 

Good looking truck!
Link to the sale?

 

Ma pleasure! Looking good.

 

I wish you were in AZ! It's so hard to find people who take pride in the quality of their work.

 

Therefore, being in the windshield replacement business, do you recommend OEM replacement or anything but OEM?

 

First time in my life I put anything other than a gate pass or inspection sticker on a vehicle. I love the black lettering with my black SR5 wheels! I didn't cover the SR5 badges because I'm going to heat those off.

 

Still trying to get used to looking back and seeing this in my rear view mirror.

 

I almost ordered the mountain version from Etsy.

 

Thanks for that post. You should really dump that in its own thread? Good info.


No shit on the calibration. I attempted one for the radar and camera sensors. It was a PITA to setup, like you said, esp the camera. Both calibrations processed with no errors, but the radar one didn't fix the CEL. The dealer said that they did the same thing and the owner was GtG. I can only blame myself.

 

Theres a reason why I always take the time and look a vehicle over before I start pulling anything off, especially if I know the windshield has been replaced before, double especially if I know its been replaced by safelite. Ive had a few close calls where I forgot to check, and I got done with everything, and the people tried to make me pay for repairs, and the only reason I was able to have proof is because the scratches were already rusted/rusting, which you need at least a little bit of time for, meaning that I couldn't have done it when I did the windshield.

another thing too, is more often than not, the older cars are the hardest to do windshields on. i cant tell you how many times I've had an 'easy job' on an older car turn into an absolute 5 hour shitshow. with a lot of the older cars, the materials are super messy, and more often than not, they've been on the car for so long, that the good old 1980s chemicals and adhesives turn into absolute disastrous amounts of toxic slime and goop that gets everywhere while at the same time refusing to actually clean off the body. the newer cars are so much nicer to work on. I'm not kidding when I say that the longest part of the replacement process is just recalibrating the windshield. from pulling the car into the shop to having the new window in and completely put back together, I have some where the total time is less than 30 minutes, and then the hour long recalibration process.

 

If youre ever up in southeastern montana, give me a shout. im more than happy to hook up TW homies whenever I can!

 

Being completely transparent, OEM and aftermarket are almost identical. at the end of the day, glass is glass. One main manufacturer specifically, Pilkington, they actually supply Toyota with 90% of their OEM glass. in the bottom corner of the windshield (it depends on the windshield, either driver or passenger side, theres a manufacturer stamp and info). Toyota 'OEM' says toyota, supplied by pilkington, but then on Pilkington 'aftermarket' windshields, they literally put an etching of their logo over the toyota one, so instead of the toyota logo, its the pilkington logo.

overall, for the most part, i like to put aftermarket in most cars if people are paying out of pocket. aftermarket is almost always cheaper than OEM, and its the same quality. sometimes if people are going through insurance, their insurance only will cover OEM glass, so we put that in, and then the same thing with certain cars. some of the brand new cars that have come out this year, like the Mustang Mach-E, 2022 toyota rav4, and the new body style jeep cherokees, theres no aftermarket glass available yet, so we have to order OEM from the manufacturer, and holy HELL is it expensive. my COST on a 2022 Jeep Grand Wagoneer windshield is over $1,100.

long story short. more often than not, OEM and aftermarket are made by the same manufacturer, just with a different stamp on it, so its really the same. i like to help people save $$ whenever they can, and if its on something that is the exact same quality, just a different logo on it, i try to steer them towards the cheaper when possible.

 

No joke on the calibrations. they get really old after a while. i posted about it a while back in a thread on it, and I hate having to do it, but the system is so expensive, and at the end of the day its a super expensive and super fancy tape measurer that tells the car "look at this board for 3 seconds, and beep at me, and you're good to go"

 

Thanks for the info. Much appreciated.
I guess the greater concern is just finding a shop that does quality work and cares.

 

I was using TechStream, free and posted in the ECU Update thread. It has worked great on everything from diagnostics to customizations and programming ECUs and keys. I made the radar target from a thread that someone posted success in. The camera target was printed out per the instructions. I likely missed something on the simpler radar calibration, unless the dealer actually replaced the sensor. Who knows?

But, yeah. The actually calibration sequence is just a few seconds. Absolutely crazy.

 

its definitely harder to find smaller shops that do good work and don't fuck people over. the big national glass companies definitely have a monopoly on the industry, but I'm happy that I've been up and running for a few years, and just started expanding out and hired on a few new people, and I've done it all with zero advertising, solely word of mouth. you just have to look a little deeper/harder than you would think. my best suggestion is when you search up autoglass shops near you, scroll down a little bit, and don't pick the top/first results, since those are usually the big shops that pay to have their name pop up first.

 

I figured that if I was going to stay ahead and relevant with all the new stuff, I splashed out on the latest and greatest for the recal stuff. i got the AUTEL brand one, and its a FULL all in one system. everything is programmed in, and the nice part is i can do some of my own side stuff with it. the biggest draw for me was that if the ECU allows it to be edited from the factory, I can edit it myself, anything from timing, to speedo calibrations, to parking sensors, to fuel rate. i definitely paid a pretty penny for it though....

 

Thanks for the advise. If you were nearby I'd certainly look you up for glass replacement. I'm fussy and I really appreciate those technicians that take their time and do a good job. Thanks again.