How car owners are ruined by a simple windshield replacement

When choosing a new car, people buy on the persuasion of sales managers, and pay extra for many options that give comfort and safety. At the same time, few people think that in the event of an incident on the road, even, at first glance, a penny repair can literally ruin the owner. The AvtoVzglyad portal will tell you how a simple windshield replacement operation will turn into a disaster for the family budget.

A typical situation: a stone flies into the windshield, leaving a chip on it, which gradually turns into a crack. With such a “gift” one cannot pass the technical inspection, and at night the glare from the crack will irritate the eyes. It's time to change the glass, and here the surprises begin.

For a long time, car windshields were the simplest and without any "bells and whistles". As a rule, there were no problems with such spare parts, and they cost, taking into account the work, quite acceptable money. But in modern machines, the “frontal” is a very complex design. There are heating threads in the glass, a mount for a saloon mirror is provided, as well as places for installing radars and sensors of various electronic systems. All this greatly increases the price of glass.

We also note that heated windows for cars are very different. The thing is that on some models the threads are literally striking, while on others they are almost invisible. The latter is a serious challenge for engineers. This is why heated glasses with very thin filaments are more expensive than products in which these filaments can be clearly distinguished.

It will cost a pretty penny to replace the panoramic glass, part of which goes to the roof. Such solutions were used, say, on Opel hatchbacks. And they also provide for mounting a saloon rear-view mirror, which also increases the cost of the spare part.

In order not to be unfounded, we will give an example. The usual "original" glass on the "Astra" H will cost 10 rubles, and the "panorama" starts from 000 rubles, plus replacement work. So before you buy a stylish car with panoramic windows, estimate the cost of replacing body parts.

Finally, those glasses where there are places for attaching sensors, lidars and cameras most seriously increase the price. Let's say if the car is equipped with an auto-braking system or adaptive cruise control.

The desire of citizens to save money is understandable, because there are non-original spare parts on the market. But even here there are many pitfalls. The fact is that for the production of triplex, sheet glass of class M1 with a thickness of 2 mm or more is used and it is glued with a polyvinyl butyral (PVB) film. For many manufacturers, both the glass itself and the film can be of different quality, and this is reflected in the price. You should not chase cheapness, because such glass will give distortion, and cameras and sensors will not work correctly or turn off completely, and the electronics will give an error.

Unfortunately, such cases happen very often. According to the masters of service centers, now every second driver comes for replacement with his own glass, but it does not match the quality. As a result, you have to buy another and re-paste, which greatly increases the cost of repairs.