09 Honda Fit windshield crack

Yesterday morning at 20 degrees my wife slapped the driver side wiper
against the windshield to break off some ice and snow and we cracked
the windshield!

Anyone else had this problem? Seems like the long windshield design
will be prone to cracks, etc.

Other than that we're happy as larks with our Fit.

c

 

Worth a trip to the dealer seeking warranty replacement. It shouldn't have
done that.

Be prepared to (politely) escalate your claim if dealer says no...

 

May be fully covered under your auto insurance plan. Call your
insurance company and ask.

 

NO! Not on a car this new and very much under warranty!

If the dealer doesn't find a stone chip in the crack, the glass is a
warranty replacement.

 

Go to the dealer first. In most cases, if you even inquire, the
insurance company will treat it as a claim, of sorts, which will
inevitably result in a premium increase.

If it was a stone chip or such, the dealer might (MIGHT) be able to
say no, but that could be bad PR for them. And this certainly sounds
like a fault.

The length of the windshield isn't the issue. It's probably the
material (the composition of the glass). It probably became very
brittle.
--
- dillon I am not invalid

When you wish upon a falling star, your dreams come true.
Unless it's really a meteorite hurtling to the Earth which
will destroy all life. Then you're pretty much hosed no
matter what you wish for. Unless it's death by meteor.

 

When our Toyota had a similar issue (cracked windshield within the warranty
period) the service writer ran a ball point pen along the crack to check for
a chip. When the pen snagged in a chip he explained it wasn't a defect, it
was damage and referred us to our insurance.

Mike

 

I Googled it and came up with this -

http://townhall-talk.edmunds.com/direct/view/.f143540/0

Seems like there might be an issue with the windshields anyways. Of
course, in your case, you caused the crack so you probably don't have
a leg to stand on.

Dan D
'07 Ody EX
Central NJ USA

 

thanks for info. Dealer said because we slapped wiper on windshiled
it's not covered.

Amazingly, Elite glass in Denver wants $700 for a new windshield! Holy
crap. Still doing research though, obviously not gonna pay that.

c

 

Theory of contributory negligence?

 

Not at all. No theories are involved, just facts. She broke the
windshield - he pays to replace it. It's zero percent the car's fault
and 100% the operator's. But they can claim it on their comprehensive
insurance because it was done accidentally.

 

Mayhaps; given the track record to-date, deficient design looms large.

 

@p36g2000prp.googlegroups.com:

This is impossible to believe, frankly.

Was the rubber blade attached, or did the steel arm itself slap the glass?

Problem is, you get what you pay for. Want rust around the pinchweld? Then
go cheap.

Plus, the car so new that the available glass is all OEM. Aftermarket
hasn't got around to making glass for this car yet. $200 windshield jobs
are thus unobtainable at this point.

 

That seems like a rather un-scientific and arbitrary way to test for a chip...

a

 

Dunno what the actual false positive / false negative rates would be, but it
is a decent field test. If the crack was not initiated by the chip, what are
the odds it would run through one on any windshield young enough to be
considered for warranty? An alternative explanation would be that the chip
was a product of the crack, but the presence of similar chips in the
windshield where it was not cracked militates against that. Then there is
the possibility that the two are coincidental; that there is a mechanism
(possibly a flaw in the original glass) that caused chips to form such that
they would be mistaken for small rock chips, and that those cracked. In any
case the onus would be on the owner to demonstrate that it was not the
obvious: pebbles impacting the windshield seeded a crack. The test was the
one Toyota wanted run.

It could be a whole lot more complicated, I guess:
http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&File_Id=5136

Mike

 

I disagree. I have often just let the wipers smack the windshield. Not
too hard of course, but I also don't place them gently back on the
glass. It seems to me that windshield glass should take a bigger
impact than rubber blades hitting it, even at 20F.

 

That's the way they do it, like it or not.


And it's more scientific than you think. Since a ballpoint pen has a sphere
on the end, it can find the very tiniest chips in the glass.

 

Yes, but did you read the original post? "....my wife slapped the
driver side wiper against the windshield to break off some ice..."
There is a big difference between a rubber blade and an ice encrusted one.

 

I think it's a combination of a LONG windshield, and a slap on a
frigid morning. Anyone who lives in a cold area knows you slap your
blades on the windshield to get off the ice. My wife did that but she
picked an area too high on the windshiled, IMHO. She should have done
it at the base, not about 1 ft. from the base as she did.

I can't say it's defective, but can say it's a fragile design
probably. Very long windshield and I bet the thickness of that glass
is minimal. Add to it a cold morning and some ice on the wiper and
you're asking for trouble.

The good news is that I found a glass dealer who can replace for $250.

c

 

I live in the Canadian province of Ontario. I am EXTREMELY familiar with
ice on the wipers!

No it's not. Honda's not stupid enough to make a windshield that's so
very fragile as to crack from the impact of a rubber wiper blade, no
matter where it hits on the glass.

Make sure these people cover /each and every/ nick they make in the
paint with their brush-on primer, otherwise you will have rust in the
frame in no time and your corrosion warranty will be invalid.

You DID read the corrosion warranty, did you not...?

 

Update, there is no after market windshield for the 09 Fit yet (as of
Jan 13, 09). So everyone has to buy from Honda and I can't find it for
cheper than $750!!!!

We're going to live with the crack and wait for after market to become
available.

c