Autoglass not honouring appointment

cherylypop

Hi all,

I found a crack on my windscreen late last week (mustve come from a chip which was 'hiding' behind my rear view mirror), phoned up my insurers glass repair line and autoglass were due to be coming out between 2 and 6 today. I thought this was quite good as I'd only phoned to book last Thursday/Firday.

Anyway at 1.30 today I got a phone call from auroglass saying they weren't going to be able to make it as there had been a 'security violation' which it turns out is code for someone else's car got broken into which is a higher priority to sort out-fair enough but I would have thought they should be able to honour my appointment which had been booked in for days, as well. Anyway I'm rebooked in for Thursday afternoon, however haven't got an awful amount of faith in them turning up since it only takes one person's car to be broken into to get shunted off their list. Also means another afternoon hanging around for them-and having family member with a garage on standby again in case it rains.

I have already paid the £75 windscreen excess-asked them if i could have some of it refunded to which their answer was no. Just wondering if anyone has any experience of this sort of thing. I'm guessing I'm stuck with them if I want to go through my insurance (old insurance was National Windscreens and they turned up to sort out chips when they said they would so if I had a choice would use them again). Has anyone had similar and mnaged to get a part refund out of autoglass, and doI have an option to use another glass repairer?

Quentin

Make some noise about this with them and your insurer.

Why did you pay in advance?

See if your insurer will authorise you to go elsewhere.

londonTiger

Just my opinion, if the chip is rounded off (i.e. not a star crack but a bulbus one which means it wont crack further) I wouldn't bother tryingt o get it fixed and paying the £75 excess.

Because your premium will increase for the next 3 years because of this claim. Not by much maybe 50 or so quid each year. Put the £75 excess on top. Then you'll find that you're actually worse off claiming for this.

you may be better off just going private and paying out of pocket for a windscreen replacement from a private garage to avoid insurance premium hikes. a windscreen replacement can be done for £150 on certain cars, there are private windscreen chip repairers who will do a chip for £20-£30 each for non-callout repairs.

Also since it's behind the [STRIKE]wing [/STRIKE] (rear view) mirror and totally out of sight, why bother getting it fixed? I would only consider a replacement if the crack is right on the smack bang in front of the drivers view.

Just a thought for future reference. It a bit late now for you to change your mind about this. it's declared to insurers so they have recorded it on their system. So it's impossible to undeclare it.

redux

londonTiger wrote: »

Just my opinion, if the chip is rounded off (i.e. not a star crack but a bulbus one which means it wont crack further) I wouldn't bother tryingt o get it fixed and paying the £75 excess.

Because your premium will increase for the next 3 years because of this claim. Not by much maybe 50 or so quid each year. Put the £75 excess on top. Then you'll find that you're actually worse off claiming for this.

you may be better off just going private and paying out of pocket for a windscreen replacement from a private garage to avoid insurance premium hikes. a windscreen replacement can be done for £150 on certain cars, there are private windscreen chip repairers who will do a chip for £20-£30 each for non-callout repairs.

Also since it's behind the wing mirror and totally out of sight, why bother getting it fixed? I would only consider a replacement if the crack is right on the smack bang in front of the drivers view.

Just a thought for future reference. It a bit late now for you to change your mind about this. it's declared to insurers so they have recorded it on their system. So it's impossible to undeclare it.

Are you so sure this is about a star crack? If it's any bigger than a certain size it will fail the MOT and there won't be an option to say the driver can't see most of it so it doesn't matter

I don't understand the advice about not claiming either.

If the insurer says that windscreen claims don't increase the premium - which most do - then it isn't going to cost £50 extra for each of the next 3 years.

If a local place can be found to do the job for £80, then maybe it's not worth claiming, but for more than that go ahead as planned.

If on the other hand it is only a small crack, then most insurers cover the repair for free, as it would normally preempt the crack getting worse and entailing replacing the whole screen. And because the OP mentions the excess charge that's why I assume it is a whole screen now

Quentin

redux wrote: »

.....If the insurer says that windscreen claims don't increase the premium - which most do.......

No.

Where have you seen "most" insurers saying this?

All claims affect your profile, and virtually all claims result in premium loadings, including glass repairs as well as replacements.

And nowadays many insurers have an excess for repairs as well as replacements!

londonTiger

redux wrote: »

Are you so sure this is about a star crack? If it's any bigger than a certain size it will fail the MOT and there won't be an option to say the driver can't see most of it so it doesn't matter

yes - pretty sure. The chip described by the OP will no way be a problem with MOT. It is no where near the drivers view, in fact it's obscurfed by the rear view mirror.

Edit: (update) read this page. http://glassdoctors.co.uk/windscreen-repair/mot-windscreen-repairs/ chips in front of the mirror are perfectly OK. The only areas that matter are the A and B areas displayed in that page


Edit2: size guess removed, refer to above page for exact MOT chip size guidelines.

A star crack is like this. http://blog.carlist.my/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/windscreen-star-crack.jpg

a bubble crack is like this. http://www.hotfrog.co.uk/Companies/Glass-Doctors/images-pr/0000134/windscreen-chip-repair-by-Glass-Doctors-106552_image.jpg

the star crack will be prone to enlarging over time, the bubble crack is relatively stable, but should be repaired in order to reinforce the area but you can safely leave it alone too if you want.

the repairer actually chips away at star cracks to round of the points in order to stop the the spread before applying the resin.

londonTiger

redux wrote: »

If the insurer says that windscreen claims don't increase the premium - which most do - then it isn't going to cost £50 extra for each of the next 3 years.

I should have been more clear on this, £50 was just a stab in the dark. There's no fixed rule for this I would hope it's just £50 although it could be a lot more if you had a non-fault accident and a windscreen claim with 1 years NCB. The point I want to make is it could be a more than £50, not necessarily just less.

redux wrote: »

If a local place can be found to do the job for £80, then maybe it's not worth claiming, but for more than that go ahead as planned.

there are always independant repairers who can do these jobs for a lot less. In fact I bet if you paid directly to autoglass the repair cost will be a lot less than what autoglass will invoice the insurer.

i've googled and found plenty of independent windscreen chip repairers who would do it for 20-30 quid a chip. But that's the chance you take when you visit an indepdant garage. So it's worht looking up reviews and getting some WOM referrals.

redux wrote: »

If on the other hand it is only a small crack, then most insurers cover the repair for free, as it would normally preempt the crack getting worse and entailing replacing the whole screen. And because the OP mentions the excess charge that's why I assume it is a whole screen now

it all depends on the insurer, budget insurers like Admiral will have a fee regardless.