As I cause injury to my automobile by efforts to maintain it, you can benefit from my learnings free of charge.

So I had cracked my windshield just trying to change a wiper blade and figured I would be looking at that 5" nick forever. But then it occured to me...cracks are known for growing, right? I set a visual checkpoint and by just the next morning I was sure that crack was already an inch longer.

Well, this was getting ugly -- literally. I went to Google and was thrilled to find out there was a miracle cure available!

I've found a man
Who could bring us all joy
There's a doctor in town who could cure the boy!
Let's see him tomorrow!

I read that it was possible to "fuse" the glass with a resin. It worked so well it would be as though my blunder had virtually never happened, plus it was cheap!

I decided to follow my dad's previous advice and called a Toyota dealership, where they forwarded me to the parts department and told me a new windshield was $250, before installation. I told them no, no! I had just read that you could fuse the glass. They didn't seem to be visiting the same Web sites I did, and I hung up.

Then I called the insurance company, where they had heard of what I was talking about, and said the repair people could even do it in 30 minutes in the parking lot of my job, and waive my deductible! WOO-HOO! The appointment was set.

So of course the day comes...and it's drizzling. Rain is the one thing that can hold up the miracle cure process. The youngster, with the Safelite company, was supposed to arrive between 8 a.m. and noon (I'm sure) but I heard from him at 2:30. He said he could touch up an old divot a pebble caused but the drizzle would prevent the main attraction, the crack that was now probably 6 1/4", from being treated. I told him I could turn on the defroster, wipe it down with 600 paper towels, whatever it t took to dry it up enough for his magic trick. He said it was my call and he could try drying it with a blowtorch he had. Good enough!

A half hour later I came out and was eccstatic to find the boo-boo had virtually disappeared! Holy shit! The only thing left was a four-centimeter right angle that he said wouldn't accept the flow of the resin, but when I asked him if that itty-bitty part might spread he said, "Nah." I thanked the guy as a miracle worker and returned to my call center labors.

Later I drove home and...that cure wasn't so miraculous. With the drizzle subsiding I could still see the crack, though it was thinner (I've since read the best you can hope for is that it will look like a hair on the windshield), but from some angles it was as visible as ever. The pebble divot looked the same now that the sun was out and shining through it. Sigh...maybe the drizzle washed the resin out? PLUS...that little-bitty leftover bit was now growing the crack in a new direction; a couple of days later it was up to about 2 1/2" and gaining daily.

I had the Safelite guy's number from the caller ID on my cell phone and figured I'd go to the source and see if he could swing by and take a look if he had a few minutes, since his office was in the area. Left two messages, no reply. Sigh...well...I guess the guy can't keep a personal client list. So I called the Safelite 800 number and they arranged a full windshield repair. Thankfully this was only going to cost $260, which is more than I would have liked to spend but relatively cheap for what seemed like such a big repair.

The whole thing was making me tense because, you have to understand, I grew up in the waiting room at Pugmire Lincoln-Mercury. My parents spent a bi-weekly fortune trying to keep the golden brown Mark IV chariot running, and it was the common source of fits, arguments and domestic strife. So I was forming a mental picture that that initial 5" crack would become the root of a Grand Canyon of body shop visits, bills and small claims court trials.

I also started thinking I hadn't really done enough research on this and called the Toyota dealership to ask what they charge for windshield replacements. They said actually they didn't do their own, they had a local guy do it. So going to the dealership wasn't the answer, because they contract it out! And I tried looking up their guy on Google and he didn't even have a Web page. Even if you're just raking leaves and cleaning gutters these days, if you don't have a Web page in 2007 it spells L-A-M-E in my book.

So the day for the full replacement came, and my cell phone rings. It's the same guy who came the first time, and he's on his way. Now...this guy had told me the four-centimeter crack wouldn't grow, and didn't call back when I left a couple of messages. Now I'm going to let him place a full pane of fragile glass inside the one-and-only car I own. Is this a good idea?!

I started fretting harder than I've ever fretted. I kept calling the 800 Safelite number to cancel, then would think, Well, maybe the kid did all he could and I'm being an unreasonable customer. I would hang up, return to my desk, then begin doubting and call the number again to cancel. Then change my mind, repeat, rinse, repeat, shampoo, repeat, rinse, shampoo...all the way until the guy was in the parking lot.

This was going to be cheap, off-brand glass that would make passing cars look like they were in a funhouse mirror. I would hear the pane rattle and buzz on bumpy roads, and the first time I hit a speed bump too hard the glass would shatter into a hundred pieces in my lap, perhaps cutting my face and disfiguring me.

I even asked one Safelite rep, "Okay, now tell me honestly...do you get a lot of complaints?" He said they got some, of course, but they had a lifetime warranty on their work. Hmm...okay. Would they cover the eye sugery after this shattered and severed my cornea?

The Safelite guy was parked with the back of the van towards me. I began approaching...halted, turned back...went back to the call center door...halted, turned back...and ultimately he left and I never made it to his van. My misgivings and fears of this going really, really wrong were stopping me in my tracks. Yes, I've never acted this flakey in my life. But was it for good reason? I felt relieved to see the van gone, though I felt bad for standing him up, and called the guy Toyota recommended. He was leaving for the day, call tomorrow.

Back home I decided I was just being a nervous freak and called Safelite one more time. The next day a different guy showed up (they only have two around here) and he put in an identical piece of glass and the "No Smoking" sticker from my previous window (this was originally a rental car) even returned to its corner. The only flaw I've noticed is 1" holes in each side of the seal at the bottom of the window where they had to prize it out, but...I think that's normal.

So what was making me so nervous about this? Aside from growing up in the waiting room of a garage, I think it's also that I work in customer service myself and have a front-row seat for the kinds of high-dollar disasters that can happen to people. Plus I get to see how incredibly dumb most of the human race is, and since these repair people come from the same human gene pool, well, anything can happen.

But it got fixed. So if this happens to you, don't fret.

2 Comments:

 Anonymous said...

you'll be replacing that windshield before the end of the year. If you fret this much over a crack in the windshield, how do you handle life's real problems?

12:17 PM, January 14, 2007  

 Anonymous said...

You mention that you've never been so flaky about anything in your life... REALLY? Have you ever read your other blogs?

9:33 AM, January 16, 2007  

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