dfinnegan

I had my windshield broken Thursday night traveling in a snow storm on Rt 84 in Connecticut. A snow plow threw snow from an overpass down onto the highway. It was a direct hit on the windshield.

From now on I'll watch the overpasses a bit more carefully when the plows are out!

Cheers,
Dave

Indycam

That can't be the normal way to remove snow from the overpass , can it ?
In one way , you are lucky that you didn't get a bigger rock in the face .
And then if your glass was like mine , a new one would be good to have .
Did the paint get beat up ?

dfinnegan

No, that's not the normal way to remove snow from an overpass. They are supposed to go SLOWLY. This guy was moving too fast. He threw quite a wave of snow over the rail.

The state, of course, doesn't want to know anything. I'll have to get my insurance company to go after them.

It doesn't appear that the paint was chipped. I really took it directly to the windshield. I really was lucky. Of the cracks that you can see the virticle fan near the driver is the outside layer. The horizontals are all the inside layer. On the left hand side the wide circular cracks, like a set of parentheses, are on the outside layer. All of the rest of the fine cracks at the bullseye are on the inside. I'd say two thirds of the cracks are on the inside layer of glass.

I've just finished rinsing the car of salt and sand and vacuuming up all the bits of glass from the inside. More than I thought, but not that much, actually.

Saddly the glass was just fine. The real problem is that this is my daily driver so I have to scramble a bit to get the work scheduled so I can go back on the road.

It'll all work out, I'm sure.

Cheers,
Dave

Richard Curtis

FWIW, when my windshield got a big star-shaped crack due to a stone being thrown up from a dump truck, the insurance company (allstate) replaced it, no questions asked. So i'd suggest just letting the ins. co. replace the windshield and then let them worry about whether to go after the state.

Over $800 with a new windshield (the majority of the cost) from a Porsche dealer. A local glass installer put it in (cost: about $100, with lifetime guarantee against leaks or any other installation problem; took an hour). the installer also looked for rust beneath the glass (didn't find any but did find a few scratches in the paint -- he said from the original installation; he had seen it before -- which he touched up with some paint).

garrett376

Richard - are you saying the piece of glass from the dealer is $800? And the installation cost $100 from a glass guy - or did the glass guy cost $100 total? Both of my cars have the worst windshields - i can't see out of them when driving into the sun! I'd love to have them replaced.

Dave - glad you're OK! Yikes! I bet that must have scared the crap out of you when it happened!

Smokin

Dave,

OUCH!

I went through this with a trucking company. If you were alone in the car... And had no witnes, they will say it's your word against theirs. If you had a passenger with you... You may be able to do something.

I need to replace my windshield too. I caught a huge rock that left a mega-star crack that is too big to repair. (Not sure I would want to anyway.)

Is the dealer generally the best way to go here? I'm not sure I'd want some noob replacing my windshield.

last toy

Most likely the dealer will shop it out to their local glass handler, they don't do glass replacements so it will end up with a glass repair shop anyway you look at it. I also have a hairline crack from a stone chip right at the lower rubber mold. Can't get to it to repair it so it will have to be replaced. The shops all have quoted about $500 installed. But the problem may be getting the right shaped windshield with the antenna set up. So far, 2 shops looking for the exact replacement have not gotten back to me. A Porsche dealer may be the only choice.

JasonAndreas

Dave & Rick,
Whoever you have replace your windshield make absolutely sure that they follow the procedure from Porsche EXACTLY (primer, paint, adhesive, new seals, everything.) Don't count on a Porsche dealership or the company they contract with to even be aware that they shouldn't just drop the windshield into place. Some know the correct procedure but think they know better than the factory. Of course two years later when you start to notice rust bubbling from under the windshield seal you'll have no chance getting them to pay for the $600-1000 repair. If you need copies of the specific pages from the workshop manuals let me know.

dfinnegan

Jason, thanks. I happen to have the Work Shop manuals and I discovered a local guy who works exclusively on 911's and comes very highly regarded. I feel like I've just found a diamond in the rough!

I also have a rust blister already started under the lower left hand corner of the windshield seal. I'm going to get that addressed first and then have the local guy do the new windshield. He's having trouble sourcing the glass, though. Thus my other posts.

As for getting a fright, I did, indeed, get a good scare when the snow hit at 55 mph. Honestly, my first reaction when opening my eyes was to look down to see how much snow and glass was in my lap. Of course, there was none.

At this point I'm feeling a bit foolish for even feeling put out after what's happened to Duncan. Wow. Thank goodness he's okay. I think I'm more upset about that then my silly windshield!

Jason, would you recommend OE glass? I've done some searching on the net, but have only found Pelican with a replacement item. I'll need to make some calls tomorrow, but was looking for some input on the oem versions.

Cheers,
Dave

Richard Curtis

Yes, the windshield was around $800 (bought by the glass repair facility from HBL Porsche, McLean, Va.) and the labor was $100. I've used the same glass place for other windshields in other cars over past 20 years. They guarantee their work forever. The guy who replaced it was familiar with Porsches (and even familiar with 964s) and knew how to replace it, knew to look for scratches in the paint, rust, etc. He reused the original seal; said it, too, was guaranteed. He said if we had gone for a generic windshield, even with the embedded antenna, the total price would have been incredibly lower. Since it was an insurance deal, I went with whatever they ordered.

JasonAndreas

Last time around I forced my insurance company to use OE glass. The dealership charged the insurance company full retail ~$900USD but the insurance company only wanted to pay for aftermarket glass available for ~$350. Pelican is selling OE glass new for $582 but that doesn't include shipping charges which could be excessive? I would definitely check with Sunset Imports and maybe an east coast dealership or two. If there is glass available in the Atlanta warehouse it will get to NY a lot quicker.

I would definitely go with a new OE windshield seal, the original seal will have to be cut out of the body with a razor. And if it ($$$) was coming out of my pocket and the difference was a few hundred dollars I would stick with OE glass too. This is one part that if you get wrong will cost you a fortune later on to fix and even then it will still give you headaches later on. The last windshield I had was OEM and leaked so I fought the insurance company for OE. The installation (OEM) was also screwed up so I can't say with 100% certainty that the OE glass would have been any better but I didn't want to take any chances.

C24FUN

Jason,

I am about to have my windshield replaced but don't have the detailed procedure to show the insurance company or the glass company. In particular I want to have the seal replaced and so far can't convince the insurance company that this is a required (and therefore insurance covered) part of the procedure. I was searching the archives and found your post so if you have any documentation that confirms the seal replacement would greatly appreciate a copy.

Thanks in advance!

Jim Grant

colo964

I just had my glass replaced by Safelite yesterday. $705 with tax. The glass is Sigla (made in Finland), as close to OEM as possible. I bought the seal from Pelican, $85. Taking off the dash and fixing some rust myself saved alot of install time (1hr with two guys that had 50 yrs experience combined).

fiskarflugen

I am in the process of filing an insurance claim on the 91 964 for a new windshield. Anyone know of where the best place to get this done would be in the greenwich CT area (06807)??? I agree the dealer is NOT the place to go. Thanks

amfp

Dave,
Sorry about the damage, but thank God the windshield took the impact. As info, I know my insurance company pays up to $500 for glass replacement with no marks against my policy as think it is called an incident. If they pay over $500, that is when it is a "mark" against potential future claims / tickets. So may want to check with your carrier.

Please keep us posted about the rust near the seal and how much of a big deal it is to fix. I have the same problem as windshield was probably replaced and it was not sealed properly.

Fiskarflugen,

I have used Houstonic Glass in Milford. You can meet them in lower Fairfield County, I believe. They do high end cars and would trust them with mine.