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Comment by MDWolinski | Hacker News Reader

Yep, we rented a Tesla from Hertz during a recent vacation. Took a small pebble in the window causing a 1-inch spider crack on the lower part of it. Over $1200 repair bill sent to us for it, luckily we had insurance through our credit card.

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That sounds like a typical price for a dealer-replaced window including sensor calibration. If you're willing to skip calibration, cost is about half that - some people say calibration is not strictly necessary, but it's a safety system, I wanted to make sure it's working.

This is based on getting my 2020 non-EV car's windshield replaced, the local glass shop said they can do calibrations for many cars, but didn't have the right procedures/equipment for my model.

Tesla-sized and shaped glass is not available from general glass shops. I had a large crack appear in mine. My insurance and multiple glass shops in the bay area told me it had to be fixed by Tesla. No one else would be able to.

Tesla did fix it for free though, because they weren't sure it wasn't an installation issue (no impact point, just a hairline crack running down the glass).

Safelite said they can replace a Tesla windshield including calibration for $1300 -- for my non-EV car, it's $1100 for a windshield and calibration.

I recently replaced a windshield (plus calibration) for a Honda Accord and it was $350.

The model X’s windshield is massive and very hard to make. Only one OEM supplier in Peru was making it. Model 3s any Ys have more “mass minded” designs, not hard to make by third parties for aftermarket.

I've had some windshields replaced by a friend of mine who runs a business in this domain and the typical cost of the windshields is on the order of 100 to 200 bucks depending on make & model, and about $50 worth of materials to put it all in according to factory spec. He can do one in an hour and a bit and it's very good money if you have a steady stream of work. He also said that if he was better at sourcing he could probably increase his margins quite a bit still but they're already more than good enough. Dealers will be happy to rip you off on stuff like this, shopping around is always smart. Except when the company has a monopoly (such as in the case of Tesla).

Those aftermarket windshield replacements (Safe-Lite, etc.) in my experience (have had a few over the years) always end up leaking. Always. If I had insurance coverage that applied I'd insist on a dealer replacement with OEM seals and glass.

I've yet to have a problem with any of the ones that were replaced, and they're approved as part of the safety structure of the car if glued in place with the right kind of glue and process. Technically it can't really be the windshield that leaks, usually it is a sign of wrong glue or an inappropriate application of the glue or process. This as well as good prepwork are key to an optimal result.

Yes, I meant that the seal eventually leaks and I get rainwater coming in and running down the inside of the glass or at the corners of the windshield.

Crappy operators tend so save on the quality of the adhesive they use, that saves a couple of bucks and looks just the same right after you leave their place of work but it comes back to haunt you in the long run. A 'proper' operator will use the exact same glue as the manufacturer originally used. Another common error is to not properly glean the surfaces the glue will have to bond to both mechanically and from various residue. This can cause the glue simply not to stick at all. The first is greed, the second is usually crappy instruction. The guy I know has worked for manufacturers on mass windshield replacements, so he has done thousands according to manufacturer spec and that makes a big difference in workmanship, but he says that there is no guarantee that a dealer will do a better job, there is the guarantee that if the dealer fucks up you usually get your next replacement for free and some of those window replacement businesses are 'fly by night', the worse the quality the bigger the chance that you will need them to honor their warranty, but also the bigger the chance that they will no longer exist. Insurance companies sometimes work with a bunch of preferred installers. Here in NL besides by friend I've also had reasonably good experiences with Carglass, not all without trouble but they want to stay in business. Over the course of now close to 40 years of driving I've lost a whole stack of windshields, especially near construction zones but the last couple of years have actually been pretty good. I probably shouldn't jinx it though :)

I have an auto glass place I've been using for 20+ years, on the "wrong" side of town. I don't think I've paid more than $200 for the entire job, and none of them have leaked, or are obviously misaligned or anything. And the glass is seemingly as good as the dealer glass when it comes to getting hammered with rocks/etc.

At those prices, I imaging the glass is as you would expect at wholesale not more than $50 or so if they can send me out the door for $140. But its not even really the price that keeps me returning every few years when invariably someone in my family gets a busted windshield, is the fact that I can call them to verify they have the windshield drive over and wait 15 mins in their waiting room and leave with a new windshield.

Adding my anecdotal info: ford front shield 500$

I have a 2018 Model 3 and the recalibration fee for a replaced windshield is complete BS. The tech that installed my replacement said they should self-recalibrate or I can just press the recalibration button in the service menu, which I did and the car had no issues adjusting.

Safelite wanted to charge ~$500 to press that button. I fortunately went with an OEM installer and although I paid a little more for the windshield, it was less than the cost of a non-oem with the recalibration fee.

Calibration is more than a button press, there's a calibrated target that needs to be set up (and at least some minimal skill in setting up the target correctly). Whether it's worth the $300+ that shops and dealers charge is open to debate, but it's not just a simple button press.

It was for me, and my autopilot functioned without issues after the recalibration period. My M3 windshield was replaced two months ago with a Tesla OEM one. The tech wasn't affiliated with Tesla, but had access to the OEM parts. The windshield was replaced from my garage with me observing the entire time.

To be clear, my experience is with my Model 3, not any other brand or make. I'm not saying other cars can be auto-fixed with a button press here.

Most of the time you can probably get by without any calibration at all, but since each windshield will have slightly different optical characteristics (and maybe it's possible to bump the camera housing and move it during uninstall/reinstall), if you want lane keeping and other safety features to work as well as possible, you need the calibration.

I suspect that if you were in an accident and tried to blame Tesla's autopilot or other automation for not working, they'll come back with "We have no record of recalibration when the windshield was replaced, we cannot be responsible for safety features with an uncalibrated camera system"

I don't think autopilot works if the cameras are not calibrated. I had to also drive a certain set of miles for it to operate again.

Your response corresponds to a lot of research I did on if I had to pay the recalibration fee or not (when I initially got a quote from Safelite) - the consensus online is mixed, but I'm speaking from my own personal experience here that I did not require recalibration tooling other than to press the recalibrate service button after my windshield was replaced and drove 20-30 miles before autopilot would be re-enabled again.

Although these are Model Y instructions, they pretty much reflect the experience I had:

https://service.tesla.com/docs/Public/diy/modely/en_us/GUID-...

The document does mention "Contact Tesla only if your Model Y has not completed the calibration process after driving 100 miles (160 km) in the described conditions.", which probably means you would need external hardware calibration tooling because it couldn't auto-calibrate.

This exact same thing happened to me in Hertz Las Vegas (except it was just under a $900 bill... I also had insurance though a credit card)

Whatever rock it was, it was large enough to make a loud noise. But I still was surprised at how much of a crack it made. My personal vehicle (BMW) which I've driven over 200x as much has never taken that level of windshield damage on similar roads with occasional rocks.

I looked carefully at the Tesla windshield afterwards and had the OEM mark on it, so it didn't appear to be a case where Hertz had already replaced the windshield with a cheaper aftermarket one (like I'd initially suspected).

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