I had a windshield replaced a while ago. they put in a Pilkington. it fractured in 2 months with an impact that was far weaker than what fractured the old glass. who makes a better product?
Pilkington is one of the best Glass manufacturers out there. It's the only thing I would replace mine with. They actually manufacturer OEM glass for a lot of the big manufacturers like BMW. FYI - The glass from SafeLite Auto Glass is garbage
I have a buddy who's worked for Xpress Auto Glass for almost 20 years. Call them and get a quote. He's always done my families cars over the years. never had the same window break twice. or you can PM me here and ill call him and have him get me a quote and maybe he can do it on the side to save you some money and help him make some extra.
they may be prolific, but i'm suspect of their product being 'good'. this will be the 2nd 'easy' fracture i've seen from them. and bmw has at least two oem glass makers. Pilkington seems to go on their low-end cars, skimming the net...
Pilkington is used for 80% of BMW's. Saint-Gobain manufactures the glass on the M-series and 7-series. Piklington goes in all 5-series and I wouldn't call that a "low-end" car. Saint-Gobain is a little bit better quality than Pilkington but they don't make replacement glass for most vehicles. They are primarily used by major luxury brands (Audi, BMW) on higher end cars. Pilkington, Saint-Gobain, PPG, Carlite, and Guardian are all companies that manufacture OEM glass. Quality is pretty comparable across the board. In my experience Pilkington had the best quality. The glass company I worked for mainly used Pilkington and PPG. PPG supposedly got a contract with Daimler to do glass in new Mercedes-Benz cars. The only thing you WOULD NOT want to replace your glass with is "Aftermarket" glass made by a company like Safe-Lite. These companies cut corners and quality is greatly affected. Also, there are so many factors that affect how glass fractures on impact...you could hit a boulder at 100mph and have little affect, but hit a small rock at 10mph in the perfect spot and it could crack all the way across. Do you have a small chip or is the glass cracked? I still have my repair kit, if its a small crack or a chip I can fix it for you after work one night.
well, thanks for the warning on Safelite. not trying to ruffle feathers, but I'm simply unimpressed with the pilkington they brought me. right away, the windshield was noisier than the stock, and it wasn't because of installation problems: the noise was thru the glass, not around the edges. then add on the quick shatter after 30 days...my only grace is its passenger side so i've been able to put it off.
Generally, the only way you could get it replaced as a "warranty" item would be to attribute the premature break to poor installation or a defect in manufacturing. Pilkington does offer a 10-year warranty on their glass but it does not cover damage from impacts.