Gen 4 - Cracked windscreen and repair experience

[GreenJuice]

Heard a loud 'tap' whilst driving on the North Circular in London.  A couple of hours later a crack became visible coming up from the location of the wiper on the passenger side. The stone (or whatever it was) hit the blackened part of the windscreen. The cracked extended over the weekend, so by the Monday it had almost reached the driver's side.

I was covered by Toyota Motor Insurance. Their preferred provider was AutoWindscreens, so I had no choice but to go with it or risk paying more than the £60 excess. I would have preferred going to my local dealer as it would have been a one-stop-shop. After taking my excess charge, they passed on my case to AutoWindscreens; who then contacted me to offer a date 10 days later. If the crack had crossed over into the drivers line of sight, I was informed that it would not be legal and would have had to stop using the car.

AutoWindscreens also said that they could not recalibrate the camera and rain sensor, but would assist me with organising the recalibration with my local dealer. One good thing was that they were going to obtain the replacement windscreen from Toyota (which allayed my concerns having read on this forum about potential problems with the HUD if the wrong type of windscreen was used).

The windscreen replacement went smoothly. They came round to my place. He was experienced and single handed. I could tell that he was very quick and skilled. I could tell it was a specialist job and he told me that quite often garages and dealerships use them to do the replacements. There were no error messages or alerts after the replacement so it was questionable if an instrument recalibration was actually required. However, the requirement was actually dictated by the Insurers in order to continue cover! They needed a document to prove that recalibration had taken place (and recommended that I kept a copy for myself).

Three days later, AutoWindscreen contact me again to follow-up on the recalibration. They make an appointment with the local dealer. Another week later and another day off work for me. It would have gone smoothly, except that on the day I took the car in, an argument ensued between the dealer and AutoWindscreen as to who was going to pay for the work. It was something they needed to have sorted out amongst themselves and not involve me. The dealer complained that AutoWindscreen should not have taken on such a job if they could not complete it themselves. I replied that although I agreed with that idea, the use of AutoWindscreens was forced by the Toyota Insurance that they sold to me when I bought the car! The dealer refused to do the work until it was resolved which wasted a couple of hours. It was an example of different operators working under the umbrella of 'Toyota' by name only and not working and communicating well for the benefit of the customer.

 

[kithmo]

Surely the insurance company should be paying for the work, or do you mean they were arguing who should be claiming. It should be fairly obvious who's claiming, Autowindscreens for the screen and the dealer for the calibration. 

[Parts-King]

The calibration DOES need doing, it is very important

I agree it should be a smooth process, it should have been sorted out at the time of booking and not involved you at all, it is Autowindscreens fault, they took the job on, they have had the profit, they should have sorted out payment to the dealer for calibration

 

[FROSTYBALLS]

Auto Windscreens would have a direct contract with Toyota Insurance, whereas the Toyota dealer wouldn't. As Auto Windscreens  had arranged for the recalibration appointment, they should be paying the dealer.

[GreenJuice]

Thanks for the comments.

They resolved it by using a system called '1 link', which the dealer said was something related to fleet cars.

AutoWindscreen advised me to get a copy of the ADAS certificate from the dealer once the work was completed. The dealer said that do not do that!

In the end I just got a copy of their invoice to AutoWindscreen  - which said, [sic] "Re-collaborate front camera after windscreen replacement"

 

[PeteB]

Phew!  To think I was worried about my insurer (Direct Line) insisting I used Autoglass!

As it turned out, they did the whole job in one of the centres about 30 miles away: if interested see:

Judging by the number of people who've written about cracked Gen 4 windscreens on this and other boards I subscribe to, it does seems the Gen 4 Prius, while not epidemic levels, does suffer a little more than the norm from this.