I cracked my windshield on my new 05 c230k...where's the best place to buy the OEM winshield? anyone know dealers that give good discounts in socal?

Thanks

 

Your insurance company should cover the winshield at no cost no matter where you replace them...no? At least mine does...Never paid a penny when mine got replace.

 

Totally depends on their insurance policy.

Dealers charge about double what anyone else would; just open up the yellow pages; it's all the same sh*t (OEM).

 

Actually, dealers usually call the local "glass guy" who then comes their shop and uses their glass. He invoices the dealer who in turn marks up the labor and invoices you (or your ins. co.).
If you can find a highly recommended glass guy, you can have him get the OEM glass and come to your location to do the job, and save some $.

 

from the OEM. you don't want a crappy windshield install. the light sensors and rain sensor will most likely not work after if you don't have the dealer do it. then you'll have to pay for it to be done twice. just have the dealer do it the first time and save $.

 

Couple of things:
the light sensor is not in the windshield
non-dealers still use oem windshields
dealers don't even really do them, as sailorlite said

I prefer to spend money on things that actually have real differences. This isn't one of them. However, if you feel that going to the dealership is safer and makes you feel more confident about the quality of the install, it's your money. For the record, my insurance would not cover all of it if it were done at the dealership (wanted 1,200 for just the glass), but did cover the entire thing from Safelite ($600 installed). Three years later, and it's still working fine; no issues.

 

CITC230, where are you located? my buddy had his car broken into about a month ago and he recommended the place that he went to for a new side window. I went there and the guy quoted me about $380 plus maybe an additional $50-100 for installation....that's a good price needless to say. He also used OEM because he called several places for that particular winshield with the rain sensors. I didn't end up changing my windshield yet because my chip is really small....in the center of my windshield but I can live with it for now. One more thing, I think once the windshield is installed, you have to leave it unused overnight with all your windows open so that the glass can settle or something like that. do a search and you'll find that post, it came up not too long ago. I'm in LA by the way, if you are out of town then I guess this isn't an option for you but you can find places that you can get better deals at, you just need to look around...good luck

 

OEM Windsheild over Aftermarket Windsheild.

YOU really should get a OEM windscreen.

I bought my 320 with 20k miles on it, my "auto lights and auto wipers" only worked about 30% of the time. I took it to San Diego Benz 1 week after i bought the car from Autobahn benz (near San Fran).

Anyways... i rcvd a call, saying that i owed 850 dollars, as the warrantee would not cover the time troubleshooting the sensors, due to a non OEM windsheild.

AND THE WINDSHEILD WOULD HAVE TO BE REPLACED TO OEM FOR EVERYTHING TO WORK PROPERLY.

took MBSD 12 man hours to figure out it the windsheild had been replaced. WTF...

outcome... the m-benz dealer in SF did PAY the bill to MBSD, took over 3 weeks before i saw my car again though due to issues with MBSD. (but hey thats 1500 miles i put on their loaner rather than my car)

 

I paid 750 installed for mine. I have rain sensors...it was OEM Mercedes.

 

An '05 C230 OEM windshield costs $348 at my dealer. Ask the dealer who does their glass installs and call them yourself to install it if you want to save a few bucks. The glass installers will get the windshield from the dealer and do the install at your home or work location.

 

never thought of that method.. but that is a way to save some $$..

 

If the replacement glass is really OEM it will have the little MB star etched into the lower left(?) corner. No logo = not OEM (but it might be just as good). I don't know how a dealer could take 12 hrs. to check that out although I guess there might be more that one OEM glass that would fit (different model yr., sensors, shading, etc.).

 

I have no idea how or why it would take so long...

And then trying to get me to pick up the tab, i began to ask the same question. Seriously i don't know much about windshields, BUT after 12 hours, i am sure i could have concluded it was not stock as well.

This is how it all came out in the end. When i bought the car in SF, they agreed to fix the sensors. (thinking it would all be waranteed and not cost anything) SDm-benz was like, well you did not buy the car from us, even though you bought it from a benz dealer we are owned by different people, so we need to recover time lost funds from them before you get your car back. SD benz did not want to do it under waranttee and SF wanted them to. SF benz paid in the end, but after a long drawn out dispute between sales and service of the two dealerships.

So hopefully i get a new service rep, next time i have to go into SD benz.

 

they kept mine over night to assure that the sealant was secure...

 

My advice is to go w/ a reputable 3rd-party windshield installer recommended by your insurance company, after independently determining that they are familiar w/ issues such as MB windshield replacement, Blue Glass, Rain Sensor, real MB OEM Glass, etc.

The windshield in my C55 got totally cracked by a rock after only 3 weeks. My MB Dealer wouldn't work w/ my insurance company (State Farm) at all. I would have actually preferred to have my dealer do the replacement, but not while reaming me at the same time.

For MB to replace it, I'd have to pay all the costs up-front, & then have State Farm reimburse me. Of course, State Farm would only reimburse up to the cost of their replacer's fee. I thought that my dealer was pretty snotty during this whole ordeal, as he wouldn't give any estimate to State Farm at all for the replacement, & didn't seem really happy about giving it to me. But the bottom line was ~$465 for my Insurance Company's cost, vs. $1,100 for MB. The dealer said it would take 4.5 hrs labor (@ >$100/hr), said the 3rd-party might not do the Rain-Sensor properly, wouldn't properly disassemble the cowling, wouldn't do all the necessary details, etc. All of this turned out to be pure BS from the Dealer.

I went w/ my Insurer's choice (Glass America), & the guy was *very* knowledgeable about MB windshields. The replacement glass was purchased *from my MB Dealer*, it had the Rain Sensor *pre-installed*, had the proper Blue-Glass, MB logo, & MB sticker, & took <30 mins from the time he entered my parking lot until the time he left. Yeah, he didn't disassemble the cowling, because he used a neat low-tech trick of using masking tape to pull the plastic cowling seals away from the windshield during the replacement. He said this avoided a lot of broken parts if you try to disassemble the cowling. It all worked well, so it seems he knew something about what he was talking about.

MB is really blowing smoke up-ur-*** if they tell u stories of how complicated this replacement is. It takes only 20-mins for a skilled replacer.

Total cost to me was a $50 deductible, vs. $600 out-of-pocket from MB. The new windscreen is totally identical to the original, rain-sensor works just as before, MB logo & decal as original, & all is just like new. Don't let the dealer fast-talk you on this (& they did talk a pretty good story to me); a windshield replacement is not rocket-science if you get a competent third-party replacement.

I actually like my MB Dealer a lot, but I think they were seriously trying to gouge me a lot on my windscreen replacement IMO.

--kirk

 

It sounds like you got the deal that the dealer was hoping to get. I'd bet your dealer's service department generally sublets out their glass replacement work and then marks it way up to you or your ins. co.

 

Here is something to think about when replacing a windshield.
http://www.ultrabond.com/whywindshields.pdf

Does anyone have any experience with the Ultrabond long crack windshield repair or with the Glasshield protection? Do you think this is marketing hype?
http://www.ultrabond.com
http://www.edgeguardusa.com

William
2003 E 320

 

KirkP.....

You said something about "BLUEGLASS"?

What exactly were you saying about this? Reason I ask, is I noticed after the windsheild was replaced that it has a "brongz/brown" tint and the side windows all have that blueish tint. Is the windsheild supposed to be blue as well?

I do have the sky view option so not sure if that makes a diff.

 

I think the Bronze/Brown tint or Purple tint belongs on an S-Class... maybe they gave you the wrong windshield? lol

The C-Class windshield is supposed to be clear or very faint blue.

 

lovely....

looks like were gunna have to watch for leaks :-(

and for some odd reason, i am not surprised to find this out.

 

Not true... the blue glass is for an AMG model, greenish for the other cars. And an S-Class windshield would not fit a C-Class, regardless.

 

Justinius - Did you wind up with a receipt showing the actual MB part number? A dealership person here could tell you then whether it's for your particular car. I don't think windshields are tinted at all, but they do have different colors and styles of shading toward the top edge. Conceivably a glass from another model year C-class, with different shading, could have been installed on your car. But there's only one exactly correct part for your car and it would have its own MB part number.
We may beating this issue to death, but if it doesn't look right to you, it probably isn't quite right - but should be.

 

Just,

I don't know what the SkyView option is, but I have a loaded 2005 C55 AMG, & it has blue-tinted glass all-around. I'm not sure if this is a C55 AMG thing, or a "Premium Option" thing (though I suspect the latter), as all the different MB/AMG/package combinations & permutations are still confusing to me.

When the windshield guy first came out he had a replacement windshield w/ a definite brown/bronze tint, and as soon as we compared it to my existing windshield, he said they had ordered the wrong part. So he came back a couple days later w/ a proper blue-tinted windscreen. If your side windows have a blue-tint, then (I think) the windshield definitely should as well.

If you got a different color tint on your front vs. other windows, then you got a different replacement than I, & I hope you can properly work it out w/ your glass folks.

--kirk

 

Ok, i just pulled the papers out to see the part number as i was going to call the dealership and see if maybe i should have a blue windsheild. But the papers say nothing.

I started thinking about it last night anyways... I would like to eventually tint the windows 30% or so, not too dark, but a bit darker than stock. So I'd loose the blueish tint anyways... SO i'm just going to deal, not sure if its worth the hassel of getting a new windsheild replaced due to color issues.

OH... SKYVIEW... the all glass roof top. I forget when the C class calls it, but the M-Class its skyview (i may be wrong on this though).

 

on the C-Class Coupes,
it's just called the Panoramic Roof or Pano-Roof for short.

I saw/read something about the M-Class SKYVIEW thing, and how MBUSA were using/are using a trademarked name for their roof-window, and were given a cease-and-desist order.
Don't know whatever happened with all that.


Carlos

Saprissa@aol.com