Killer Windscreens Exposed! Don’t risk your life by having your screen replaced!
Posted by Glass Doctors | Filed under Poor Windscreen Replacement, Windscreen Repair
” Don’t worry, the customer will never see it when the screen is fitted”.
How could the glass industry allow a practice that did such damage as to seriously compromise a windscreen’s ability to support the roof and retain the passenger-side air bag as the car manufacturer designed it to?
Close cut, or short cut, means removing a windshield by cutting as close to the glass as possible, leaving the original bead of urethane in place. The installer then puts a new bead of urethane on top of the original, and installs the new glass.
Full cut means removing almost all the original bead of urethane after the glass is removed, cutting as close to the pinchweld as possible and leaving a very thin layer of the original bead intact. Then a very much larger bead of new urethane is applied, and the new glass installed. Most major car manufacturers support and endorse the full cut method; some flatly reject close cutting.
The Rust Problem
On all installations, it’s critical to re-prime every scratch and every bare area of steel that results as installers remove a windshield and prepare the pinchweld for installation. Only re-priming can seal the body and provide the best possible surface for bonding again. Any exposed, unprimed area is a potential rust site. Unfortunately, many installers are too rushed to properly follow the strict guidelines required for close cutting.
The most common cause of rust is running a utility knife around the perimeter of a windscreen to ease the cutout knife’s passage through the old urethane. This scores the metal all around the perimeter and leaves an entire circumference of potential rust problems. Using a utility knife is a terrible practice that saves only seconds on the removal.
It takes only a couple of minutes to re-prime an exposed surface, but, again, many installers don’t take the time, just don’t care, or weren’t properly trained in the first place. Many installers who think they’re doing proper close cut installations are actually doing “fast-track” or “quickie” installations, again due to lack of training or lack of caring.
Bottom line: rust is due to very poor workmanship, no matter what the installation method.
An example of rust that caused the screen to pop out on impact and eject the driver from the vehicle.
“Decking”
Second, a “decking” problem may occur with close cutting. When you stack urethane on top of urethane, the glass inevitably sits “higher” off the pinchweld. This, too, can induce stress breakage due to the fact that many vehicles’ doors now close tightly to the windshield moldings at the A-pillars.
Urethane Compatibility
Third, urethane compatibility requires never close cutting on top of a previous close cut, because you’re combining potentially dissimilar urethanes with no crash test data to assure that you’re returning a vehicle to its original crash worthiness.
There are many ways to scratch the pinchweld down to bare metal when removing a windshield; realistically, it’s almost unavoidable, but re-priming restores the bonding surface and restores the rust protection that was provided by the manufacturer. It is one of the single most important aspects of glass installation for the body of the car and the glass.
Article By Mark Rizzi
ACR Glass
Tags: Killer Windscreen, Poor Windscreen Replacement, Windscreen Repair
How You Can Save Money with Glass Doctors: How to Save a Monkey!
Posted by Glass Doctors | Filed under Advice for Fleet and Claims Managers, Insurance Anti-Scam Guide, Windscreen Repair
Problem: My present windscreen suppliers just give me excuses rather than repairs.
Beware! If your current supplier brings a replacement screen when they come to “do a repair”, chances are you are paying for more replacement screens than you need to be!
The most important statistic to consider when comparing costs is The repair ratio!
So how can Glass Doctors be cheaper at £60 per repair when a windscreen replacement company only charge £30 ? … see how it pans out over 10 repairs…
Windscreen Co. (£30 per repair) Glass Doctors (£60 per repair)
Repaired 1 @ £30 = £30 Repaired 7 @ £60 = £420
Replaced 9 @ £150 = £1350 Replaced 3 @ £150 = £450
——— ———-
TOTAL COST £1380 £ 870
——— ———-
Savings for every 10 windscreens……………………£510 (that’s more than a monkey!)
Conclusion
Even though Glass Doctors are charging double the amount per repair, the fact that they do more repairs and do them to a better standard is the key factor in determining overall cost savings.
Solution
Use Glass Doctors and save, because there is no replacement for our repairs!
Important note to Fleet and Claims Managers.
Who is inflating all the pies?
Make sure any increased “repair ratio” is not at the expense of the overall total of claims. Magically you are getting 20% of your glass repaired but when you look at the figures the total has increased by 20%! Ensure the repaired slice of the pie increases not the whole pie itself!
Tags: Claims Manager, Fleet Manager, Repair Ratio, Windscreen Repair
Why Windscreen Repair is the Green Alternative
Posted by Glass Doctors | Filed under Windscreen Repair
Did you know that it takes as much CO2 gas to drive to from London to Birmingham as it does to make one average car laminated windscreen?
A glass furnace is used for 24 hours a day and consumes a massive amount of energy; 605 kg of CO2 for every 1000kg of glass produced. Thats over half of the weight of the glass itself going up in smoke and using our valuable resources!
Only a windscreen chip service that saves the screens that would have normally been replaced is a truly green service. 80% of windscreen cracks emanate from damage in the outer 2″ of the screen, so…
…if your windscreen repairer cant or wont do damage around the edge of the screen then they are missing 80% of possible savings.
Out of the remaining 20%, approximately half are MOT failures ( over 10mm in Zone A ) which again are NOT repaired by some so called repair companies.
Windscreen repair instead of replacement is the green alternative every time!
Why replace 7 square feet of glass when you can repair one square inch?
Call Glass Doctors now on 07836 709244 to arrange your windscreen repair.
Our Mission Statement
We are in business to save our customers time and money.
We repair more screens by being better at repairing them.
Our repairs are better because our knowledge is greater and our equipment is the best in the world.
We save our customers more money by repairing screens that would otherwise be replaced or badly repaired.
We build long term relationships with our customers based on repeat business of a proven quality service.
Tags: Environmentally Friendly, Windscreen Repair, Windshield Repair
Advice For Dealing With Your Insurance Company Regarding Your Windscreen Repair
Posted by Glass Doctors | Filed under Insurance Anti-Scam Guide, Windscreen Repair
My insurance co. says I must use their nominated supplier…
You never know who you could be talking to!
“Sorry Madam, we can’t repair your windscreen because the chip is within 5cm of the edge of the screen.”
“Sorry Sir, we can’t repair your windscreen because it has heating elements in it.”
“I’m afraid it’s against the law to repair in the drivers vision area.”
“The British Standard doesn’t allow repairs over 10mm on the drivers side.”
“Sorry Sir, we can’t repair that chip because it’s within 50mm of another repair.”
“We can’t repair a windscreen chip with legs on it as it may crack.”
“Its too small to repair.”
These are some of the favourite excuses used by windscreen replacement companies to sell you a new screen. None of them are valid.
In fact you could have spoken to a screen company when you rang your insurer! Windscreen companies have staff working at insurance companies and also sometimes run the so-called “glass help lines” and will answer the phone in the name of your insurer, so you think you are speaking to your insurer when you are speaking to a replacement company! Naturally the “advice” given by such “help lines” is biased and sometimes misleading. (We have spent 15 minutes discussing damage size of a “£5 coin” with a phone operative just to demonstrate that they had no idea what they were talking about).
It was an overseas call centre! They had never even seen our currency!
You are under no legal obligation to use the nominated supplier. Insurers would rather you did so because they have negotiated special discounts for screen replacements and have billing arrangements already in place. The more business they place with the nominated supplier the more kickback they get. The Competition Act 1998 outlaws restrictive practices of this kind.
It’s an MOT failure, will the insurance companies nominated screen company repair it?
NO! It is “against their guidelines” to repair damage over 10mm diameter in the drivers vision area, (but naturally they will not volunteer this information unless asked, so you end up at their depot when they tell you it “needs a new screen”). This will cost you the £75 excess if you fall for this scam.
Read what Honest John’s website contributors think of windscreen repair.
Tags: Avoid Insurance Scam, Insurance Scam
Price List & Terms
Posted by gdmanager | Filed under Uncategorized
Glass Doctors come to you at home or work so there is no call out charge unless you mis-describe the damage. So we do need to ask you about your damage first so we can make sure it is likely to be repairable so we do not waste our time or your money.
As you can tell we are not one of those companies that is tied up in legal jargon and reams of unreasonable clauses in tiny print, but we do have a few common sense rules that help us to help you.
We guarantee that your chip will not crack within 1 year after we repair it for you provided it is under 20mm diameter and no one else has tried to repair it before us.
NEW! We now offer a “lifetime warranty”, which means we will guarantee your repair against cracking out past the original damage for as long as you own the car. This costs an extra £10 plus vat at the time of the repair and covers the original car owner who paid for the repair only.
If you book us to do your job we make time in our diary for you on that day and may turn other jobs away so we can get to you. If you book us and then decide later that you wish to cancel because your insurance company has said you can only use the nominated supplier then a £30 cancellation charge may be levied.
COSTS
We offer the following discounted prices directly to the public. Any company that attempts to discriminate between their suppliers by using a policy excess, terms and conditions or other financial device or third party company to circumvent legislation or unfairly distort competition will not be eligible for these prices and will pay an 80% surcharge.
£60 plus Vat for the first chip on the screen ( £72.00 incl VAT @ 20% )
£10 plus vat each additional chip on the same screen on the same visit.
£10 plus vat for extended warranty (at time of repair only)
£10 congestion charge.
£10 working at height on any apparatus
£40 per hour or part hour for time spent:
awaiting the keyholder,
finding the car,
awaiting authority,
finding the keys,
awaiting written orders/documentation,
attending your companies safety briefing or any company induction or registration procedure.
Re repairs and work outside normal 9am- 5pm and weekends carry a £10 surcharge each. ( So a repair after 5pm on Saturday will be an extra £20.)
Scratch Polishing £70 – £120 depending on the scratch. Front screens £100 minumum. Some distortion is probable on deep damage (that catches your nail). Laminated glass (front windscreens) are prone to cracking when polished, more so when other chips and pits are present on the screen in the vicinity of the area worked. A polishing head is normally 5″ across so it will not fit into tight corners or within 2″ of the glass edge. (We are unable to deal with damage where the wing mirror is smashed into your door glass and has left scratches on it.)
£10 callout charge is made for all unrepairable damage which has not been described accurately by the customer. ( We need to know about the the OVERALL size of the damage not just the impact crater ) If someone else has tried to repair your damage at any time before you MUST tell us first. If it is a new car to you and you are not sure whether it has been repaired before then you must tell us.
A £30 cancellation fee may be charged for broken appointments and previously repaired damage that is not notified to us beforehand regardless of whether you are aware of it being repaired or not even if you have just bought the car and were not aware. Glass Doctors don’t offer timed appointments and we are unable to do a job at a specific time but we are happy to try and work around your requirements and we are happy to ring you when we are on our way to you from the job before yours. We can sometimes zone our work between morning and afternoon. Occasionally we get stuck on a difficult job during the day that takes longer than we would expect to do and this can make us run too late to get you if you are the last job of the day. If this happens we apoligise and will rebook you as a priority but we must always spend the correct time to get the job 100% right as you will expect when it is your turn.
We need to get inside the car to affix a magnifying mirror on the screen and heat and cool the glass so we are unable to work without getting into the car. You need to tell us exactly which chips you want repairing so we can give you an accurate price and complete the job to your requirements. Dont wait till after we have packed away to ask for an extra chip to be done that you forgot about when we started the job. Additional chips are heavily discounted so its well worth doing any extra at the same time. A Re-repair, large or contaminated chip may be structurally repaired if you wish and these repairs are fully chargeable regardless of any cosmetic imperfection.
All windscreen chip repairs are done using our own 12 volt supply. Scratch polishing needs a 240v supply so we will need to plug our extension lead in somewhere. Some mess is caused by polishing which is removable with water, however we will NOT clean your car after we have worked on it as we may be blamed for damage on your cars paintwork that you may not previously have been aware of.
Please pay by cash or cheque at the time of the job. We do not take cards. We retain title to the resin until it is paid for in full.
If we bill your insurer then you are liable for the job if they do not pay us. You are responsible for ensuring that you actually have the correct insurance cover for your screen.
Unfortunately we do not accept any liability for already damaged glass that we are working on. All work is attempted at the customers risk. If any glass cracks we do not earn any money so we do our utmost to repair it for you successfully to a high standard, however sometimes a screen can be under hidden stress which is not apparent. The statistical possiblility of cracking is about 1/750.
Trade customers please call for trade rates on 07836 619 196. A trade customer is a registered motor dealer with more than one vehicle to be repaired on the same visit on a regular basis by pre authorised credit account.