How to deal with smashed tailgate glass?

[theandywaite]

Hi all

 

My mum has reversed her car into her garage door while it was partially open. The area of impact was the glass on the tailgate, so there is no damage to the external bodywork thankfully!

 

The damage is as follows:

* The rear heated screen is entirely smashed and needs replacing.

* The wiper has been pushed in. It looks like the fixings on the wiper motor housing are designed to be sacrificial and these have been bent so will probably need a new wiper motor.

* A very small (I mean small) amount of the metal on the tailgate around the window opening is bent. This is an area normally entirely hidden behind the glass. I'm 99% certain you could just bond a new piece of glass and not bother fixing this as it's not seriously bent and you would never see it.

 

 

What's the best way to deal with this? Would it be covered under the glass cover on the policy or is it a proper "accident"?

 

If she wanted to fix without making a claim who would we call? A windscreen place or a body shop?

 

[J.R.]

I would sort out the wiper motor so there are no signs of impact or damage to it and then submit it for a glass replacement in the normal manner.

 

Never having done one I dont know if you have to state what caused the damage, I will leave that between you and your conscience, I'm sure nearly all rear screen breakages are reported as "unknown, glass was broken when I returned to vehicle"

 

The minute any body repairs become involved then its an insurance claim affecting NCB, glass alone is usually OK, Carglass or Autoglass wont have any motivation to say body repairs need doing.

[theandywaite]

Followed above advice and it's all sorted.

 

New wiper motor from a breaker on eBay.

 

Touched up the tiny bit of missing paint around the window frame frame.

 

Vacuumed out all the shards of glass

 

Autoglass came out to fit a new rear glass for the cost of the excess with no questions asked.

 

Job's a good'un