My Iq Is Broken! :(

[Kip]

So me and my partner decided to go visit her parents. It's 54 miles each way. About 20 minutes into the journey, we are cruising along the A1 in the inside lane doing around 40-45 mph with the rest of the traffic. The traffic was fairly heavy but calm, and the outside lane was only moving slightly quicker than we were, and we were due to turn off pretty soon anyway. Out of nowhere, SMASH, the driver door window decides it does not want to be a part of my car any more...

I looked over to the other lane, thinking it must have been something fairly significant to cause the whole window to shatter. The lane looked perfectly normal as it was last time I glanced over. A couple of cars slowly overtaking and that was that. No huge lorries. No vans with unstable loads. Nothing. Even all the other cars windows were wound up, so I quickly worked out it could not have been a fallen object or otherwise intentional. That only leaves one other suspect. A stone from the road.

For me, it is unheard of that a small stone at modest speed on a busy motorway could have hit the window with such force. I will put it down to extremely bad luck.

We were recovered fairly quickly and for free by a local highways unit, and we didn't even get chance to call them, they were that quick in getting to us. If I had a hat, I'd take it off to them for such a great service. Once in the safety of a retail park car park, we got to work cleaning up the billions of tiny shards of glass so the car would be at least drivable.

As it was spitting on to rain, I didn't want to leave it to chance. We managed to get hold of a plastic sheet and good old duct tape and covered the window up pretty well. Although noisy, it was fine up to around 60mph. After that the noise levels would have become unbearable and the risk of it coming off would of gone up quite a lot.

Now my car is safely off the road out of the way of criminals and the like, my next main worry is getting the car fixed up. I'd hate to think what a new sheet of glass is going to cost, but it'll be my only option. Being 21 and having a high excess means insurance company help is a big no-no. So, how much would a new sheet of glass cost? I will be trying scrap yards and breakers yards but I highly doubt I'll find an accident damaged iQ with intact glass. I may have a go fitting the new glass myself as I'm sure removing trim and whatnot is not too difficult. If for some reason special tools are needed then I'll leave it to a professional to fit the glass and I'll save myself some money on labour by doing all the trim work myself.

[Red Yaris 54]

If you have fully comprehensive insurance you should be covered for the glass breakage (Windscren and Glass Cover) with a small (£60 or £70) excess

Check your insurance policy....most insurers insist you use a national glass repair company

Good luck in getting it fixed

[Kip]

Checked insurance, only windscreen glass is covered, not door glass.

[tarquin]

Sad pictures. See what you mean about the Trim tool now. My only word of warning is that I would take off the door panel myself before the glass fitters come. Here is a list of what you have to do if you want to do it

Using the trim tool,

Take off the chrome handle/mid range speaker cover (start at the thinnest end)

Remember all the panels will be tight so persevere .

Unclip the white connector to the speaker by de-pressing it. Next to the speaker there is a screw to remove.

Using my "Door handles" topic pics, take out the window switch plate. Remember if you have scoops on that plate, there is a screw cover and screw to remove in the middle of the scoop. and un-clip the white plug by de-pressing it

Under the door lever there is a scoop to remove and under that there is another screw to remove.

That completes all the screws to remove.

Un-clip the triangle shaped corner plastic which covers the wing mirror wiring.

The door panel comes off as one piece

As yours is the drivers side, starting from the inside bottom right, get on the floor and with the trim tool in one hand , prise with the fingers of the other hand until you can see the white clip holding the panel on.

This is important. slide the pronged part of the tool under the clip, flat to the metal of the door, there is a thin almost see through flange to get under.When the tool is under leaver the clip out.

Work along the bottom and side up to the lock. You should be able after a time to pull the whole door panel out.

The top edge is the last to come off. Be careful as at this stage you have to un-clip the door lever cables.

Again this all sounds "wordy " but I can do it in less than 5 mins.

My guess is that the glass person would not have seen many if any iQ's and wouldn't know too much as to how they come apart. I just wouldn't want someone practicing on my car.

My opinion of course

P.S when re-fitting, the panel goes on the top lip first and work your way down. Make a mental note where the clips are so you know where to push them back in.

And make sure if any of the clips remained in the door when you took the panel off, then pull them our and fit them to the panel first before re-fitting it. ( If you leave the clips on the door then they won't re-clip to the door panel as they have to be hooked in)

Hope this helps

David

[Red Yaris 54]

Checked insurance, only windscreen glass is covered, not door glass.

That is most unusual.....the normal clause in "Windscreen and Glass Insurance" is:

We will pay:

To repair or replace broken glass in your car's windscreen or windows, and any scratching to the bodywork caused by broken glass, as long as there has not been any other loss or damage. We may choose to repair your car with parts that may not have been made by the car's manufacturer but are of a similar standard. Any payment for replacement of glass under this section will not reduce your No Claims Discount, (though at your next renewal you will no longer be eligible for any increase in your No Claims Discount according to our declared scale). However, in order to obtain the full benefit under this section the work must only be undertaken by our approved windscreen repairer

Full sized glass (panoramic) sunroofs are not covered but are included in the normal vehicle insurance

I know that it is a bit late in your case but I would be reviewing my Insurance cover if I were you!

[Kip]

Thanks David, think I will get myself down to Halfords today after cleaning out the remaining glass. My mother called the local Mr T and got a price of £185.77 + VAT (£222.92), which would include removal of the old glass shards, the new glass itself and of course fitting. I've had door panels to bits before so I'm still in favour of doing at least most of the work myself.

[Kip]

Even if my insurance would cover it, my excess would be higher than what it would cost to repair.

A few more figures, the glass on its own will cost around £129 including VAT, so that's nearly £100 in labour. Not surprising to be honest. They also said the glass could arrive as early as tomorrow morning if it is ordered today, so I better get started.

[Red Yaris 54]

Even if my insurance would cover it, my excess would be higher than what it would cost to repair.

A few more figures, the glass on its own will cost around £129 including VAT, so that's nearly £100 in labour. Not surprising to be honest. They also said the glass could arrive as early as tomorrow morning if it is ordered today, so I better get started.

As previously stated..MOST Insurers only charge a fixed excess (£60 or £70) for glass replacement which does not affect your normal insurance excess

It would appear, however that you have chosen an insurance company which unusually does not cover glass breakage other than windscreens

That alone is a good reason to consider a change of insurers IMO as side and rear window breakage is quite a common occurrence

[s44gtw]

Any short term saving on replacing the glass cheaply will catch up later if the fit & tint is wrong when trading the car in.

The correct glass will be needed then.

(Have you checked the Thickness of the glass on the other unbroken window?)

Re breaking glass and car speeds.

The last bad chip i got on my iQ's rear quarter panel, was from a snow plough 3 lanes away on the other side, which was going in the opposite direction.

It sounded like a bullet hitting.

The last windsreen chip was from gravel that came off a lorry going in the opposite direction,

i could see the stuff lifting in the air, but could not stop driving into it, as he was thundering along in a howling gail with driving rain.

Time before that was i think a Pellet gun fired from someplace, but could not be sure,

shattered the windscreen tho.

Lucky white heather is needed for me,

i should have bought the cloths peg from the old woman at my door.

if i did not have bad luck, i would have no luck..

I am just always grateful to walk away with just expense and no injuries or serious accident occuring.

Do you not have protected no claims?

george

[barrycoll]

this is a really sad story, but not an uncommon happening....as Red Yaris says, it shows where the value is in a reasonable priced insurance policy, and not a cut price one....

there is always a silver lining it seems, and for me it is David's masterclass description of how to remove the door panel and trim........as for taking 5 minutes, well, the only comment to that is that a trip round the M25 to have David remove it would be quicker than me being extra cautious with any trim tool..

I had a rear ofside passenger window broken by a toe-rag, nicking my backpack from the back seat, while parked up in Spain, but way up in the Pyrenees on the border to France....we were out cycling, and had a nasty surprise on our return..

our insurance company (based in Ireland) was happy to organise a new window for us, by phoning a company in France, who would then have to drive to us up in the mountains of Spain, but it was all going to take too long....so I drove home to the UK with a plastic covering too, but as it was the back window, I didn't have the problem of no visibility out the drivers window..

...but all the best to KIp for a good outcome to this.BarryC.

[sweet-dentist]

Good story Kip... although not nice to have it happened... thanks for sharing this...

We learn ... let's look up our insurance papers...

Peter

[Kip]

Wise words from Peter, will have to look at small print next time I go shopping for insurance.

Geogre, no my NCB is not protected, possibly because of my age and I've read somewhere that you need at least 5 years usually for protected NCB. As of March next year I will only have 3 (providing nothing major happens before then, touch wood). When I first started driving I was just a named driver so didn't acquire any NCB at all. Bad move really but it wasn't my choice.

David, I managed to get the door panel off thanks to your help. Unfortunately, that's where things stopped. Behind the panel there's quite a bit more to take off from what I could see, and I've been persuaded to just get it sorted at the local Mr T tomorrow. I live some distance away from my parents and they can't keep running me around so the car needs to be back on the road as soon as possible really. As I've already cleaned the glass out of the cabin, I'll haggle the labour charge down from the original price they gave as soon as I get to the dealer. Also some of the panels I've just left off and the main door panel isn't back on completely, should speed things up.

The blue plastic in the pictures I assume will be untouched. To me it looks like the whole of the red panel comes off to allow fitting the glass, but that's just me and my limited experience.

Was quite looking forward to fixing it myself, guess I'll have to settle with just doing the service instead.

[tarquin]

Hi mate

Its all very sad news. The black sealant and membrane will have to come off. It is very elastically and trashes your clothes. Only needed to lift the bottom part when i fitted the puddle lights. The only two types of window i have seen anchored to the window actuator are either a bonded on plate with bolt hols which bolt to the winder mechanism or a sort of floating grip arangement where the glass doesnt have anything on it just glass and gripped along the bottom edge. You generally have to take out the outside window guide to give you room if it has the metal bonding on the new wimdow. If you were going to do it yourself i could look at the workshop manual for you to see whats to do

David

[Kip]

Car is all fixed up now. Still the odd bit of glass inside the door though... They said they couldn't get it all out. Hopefully it will all fall out the bottom holes in the door eventually. You can still hear its inside when the door is closed but I can live with that. I'm just happy to have my car back on the road. Only managed to knock a fiver off the price of labour but they did give the car a good wash before I got it back. Quite handy really as it was in desperate need of one!

[s44gtw]

Pity that they/he never used an air line to blow the glass about and a good suction vacuum cleaner to remove it.

good that the glass is done tho.

george