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Scion xB Windshield cracks
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Comments
MyScionSucks.com
Your web site is excellent. My xB has not yet cracked its windshield, but it's just a matter of time. Thanks for all of the time you have spent accomplishing this enormous feat.
David
On 3/24 we had the vehicle inspected by two people at the service dept. & they seemed to agree that there was no impact. Told us that they would talk to the "toyota gods" and get back to us on whether they would replace. A few days later, they called to tell us they had ordered a new windshield for us. Hurrah, we thought.
We waited 5 weeks for the windshield to arrive. When my husband brought the car in on 4/28, it was promptly driven out of his sight. When he caught up to it, two service staff were "penning" it aggressively and came quickly to the conclusion that there was a rock chip at the top of the crack. No visible chip of course, but staff assures him that you can "feel it" with the pen. Of course we find this terribly suspicious, since 1) we never saw an impact cause. and 2) Neither did the first two people who inspected it.
On May 1, emailed the the customer service manager at Beaverton Scion, attaching a copy of all the relevant forum posts from this site. It's May 4 and still no response. Have emailed again & am going to follow up with phone call.
So far, not good though.
So I went to two Toyota/Scion Dealer in orange county, CA today and got treated like #### to say the least.
First said right away, that’s not covered; took him two seconds. Now mind you that, we were walking to the car at this point.
Second guy came and took his fingers and ran it across the crack and said that he didn’t know. So I mentioned this web page and things got a little more serious. The second guy called the manager who then came out with the pen.
Now here is when I start to get really upset.
I am not a physicists, but when a 200lb guy apply pressure through an instrument the size of the tip of a pen, things will crack. He pushed the pen so hard that you can hear the squeak on the glass. (I have before and after picture if anyone is interested. ) And you know what he told me? "...this pen is as scientific and precise and it gets as far as Toyota is concerned...." Even with the naked eye you see that the glass is uneven. He ran the pen up and down the crack and then side to side.
My question is, which way are they suppose to run the pen?
A: Perpendicularly across the crack ?
B: Along the surface following the crack?
If he ran the pen hard enough following the crack, wouldn’t this cause a wedge that would get worst when the pen is then ran the other say?
What got me mad was he told me to come back and wait from 7am to 8pm for a SPMS person to inspect it....
to be continued.
B. They are supposed to run the pen along the surface of the crack, not applying much pressure, to see if they can "feel" a nick in the glass where the impact occured. You could basically throw some chicken blood on the windshield and throw some bones on the ground enacting a VooDoo ceremony because that is about a accurate as their "pen test".
Visit this site and it will explain all you need to know about your issue:
www.myscionsucks.com
I have 24000 (New Jersey) miles.
No Cracks or Chips in the windshield, and no other problems of any kind with my xB.
Except...
Sunday I step in the car in my garage and halfway up the passenger side post is a crack that goes in a few inches and then straight up a few more. No impact, no nothing. I thought it was a fluke but decided to google it.
That quickly led me here. And now I am very concerned. I wonder if this would have taken so long had I not garaged the vehicle. Heck, the ambient temperature was in the low seventies the whole time.
What a shame. I am thinking of just leaving it cracked to avoid the hassle of replacing it over and over. I bought the vehicle for utility anyway, and the only option I got was the floor mats. I hit a pedestrian (totally his fault) after owning it two weeks and the dent from his head is still in the hood just above the headlight as a warning to other pedestrians. IOW, I am willing to put up with minor cosmetic issues.
It's really a shame. The new xB's just don't compete with the same market as the old ones. They are too long, too heavy and get significantly worse gas mileage.
I guess nothing's perfect. Still, it's a bummer.
If a vehicle - ANY vehicle - has a large enough expanse of glass for a windshield, it requires, at the very least, thicker glass than other vehicles. If windshields continue to get cracks with no object impacts, it means the windshild is the victim of a design defect.
It is really that simple.
If the replacement windshields are identical to the original, the problem has not been solved. It is worse than a band-aid, because the cut gets no better. You just keep replacing band-aids ad-infinitum until the car ends it's useful life from use and wear.
That is not acceptable.
Reminds me of the old Diesel GM cars...
That said, If you look at my posts above this one you will see it eventually hit me too.
I have found that most cars have a "unique" problem to one degree or another, but some are really bad. I bought a brand new 1980 Buick Skylark and it was such a lemon, I sold it a year later. I then started a new job a year later and one of my workmates had a 1980 Skylark parked in a garage pending a lawsuit. He gave me a one page, two column list of problems the car had. Mine had almost every single problem on the list. Many were safety issues.
The old GM X-Body really was a true lemon law nightmare.
Meanwhile, remember that there are not all that many xB's on the road. And not all that many owners know to go to sites like this. But if you want to know if this is common, just check out the windshields of xB's in parking lots, etc. Talk to the owners of cars with good windshields and see if they have ever had to replace them.
Based on what I have seen regarding other cars, this seems to be a pretty severe epidemic, relatively speaking.
I never would have thought to google "scion xb and windshield crack" before I bought it. I've owned 28 cars in my life and I have never come across such a thing as this.
If I had come across this site, I would be driving something else right now...
That is the reason it is not as thick and windshield glass.
Dennis
My main point, however, was that windshields need to be designed to successfully do what they are supposed to do. That is why the windshield on an armored car, or a 747 is different from one on a Volvo.
But if a particular style of car keeps cracking windows from normal driving stress (no impacts), it needs to be either thickened or otherwise redesigned.
Meanwhile, I just came across another thread where a guy bought two of the NEW xB's and both of them ended up with stress cracks within a few weeks.
This is a very bad thing. It is really unacceptable.
The windshield cracked from a small rock the first time, and the 2nd time I don't even remember anything hitting it.
I have contacted Toyota corp. and they have lodged my complaint(s)but are not owning up to the fact that there might be a flaw in the inherent design of the XB.
Please let me know if you would be willing to step forward to Toyota.
Thanks.
Teddi2
If I hear from enough owners I think we should approach Toyota to install a better windshield and better moulding around it.
Here is the NHTSA/ODI url: http://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/index.cfm
Complain to the people who can make a difference. It's your government, use it.
The WheelMan
We had a local Postmaster who wouldn't make us keys for our mailbox right after we moved in to the little town we live in. Every day one of us would go in to the Postal Department and ask for our mailkey to open our mailbox and get the mail that is our right as U.S.citizens to receive. They would say "Oh, the lady that makes those keys isn't in" or "she hasn't had time to make those keys yet, please hang on for a while longer." Right.
We looked in the phone book for a Federal watchdog group for Postal Department employees and managers. We found the phone number of an organization that does just that and called it to complain.
Guess what happened? The next morning, around 9:15AM (early in the Post Office day) the Postal Supervisor for the Post Office in our little desert town drove the keys over to our rental house and gave my wife the keys to our new mailbox. My was she polite, too!
That group got results within about 6 working hours of one business day. You might want to follow the above poster's advice and see if it doesn't work for ya.
2021 Kia Soul LX 6-speed stick
David
I too have called Toyota and have gotten nowhere. I would be more than will to step forward toToyota becasue I too believe that the windshields are defective. I am tempted to trade the car in and get my money back and buy something else.
Teddi2, what did you have in mind in terms of "stepping forward to Toyota"?
Thanks,
Cathy
I own a 08 xB since August 08 and thank goodness I haven't had this issue of the windshield cracking.
I believe that those that have had their windshields crack should open a case with the National Highway Safety Administration and them maybe if enough people complain something might get done.
Good Luck
I made a (1) one piece straight strut bar for my '06 xB within 2 weeks of purchase,
I believe the front end flexes because the Sardine cans they use are just too thin to keep the front end from bending. And glass doesn't flex. David
Best of luck on your discussion with Toyota/Scion concerning the windshield of your '06 xB. If they agree to replace your windshield, that's great. If not, I recommend you read my 'federal case' post.
The WheelMan.
The HHR looks cool to me, nearly as ugly as the original xB . But that is a GM product, so I would rather take my chances on the glass of the xB failing than everything that could go wrong on a GM.
Dennis
Cheap too, but really, really small.
Dennis
Thanks. :lemon:
Jfishin
I bought a used '06 Scion xB in Aug. '07 & w/in a week my windshield(WS) was leaking big time. There were no cracks & the carfax report came back clean w/ no prior accidents. I called the dealer & since it was under warranty they had a local WS co. replace the WS. That weekend I washed the Scion & noticed water running down the inside of the WS again by the rear view mirror. Still no obvious reason of why it should be leaking. I was extremely concerned about electrical issues w/ the water & the fact that I live in Portland which meant lots of rain. I called the dealer again & this time I asked for another co. to replace the glass, thinking the other co. had just done a bad job. After the 2nd time of fixing it I thought everything was fine until I noticed loud popping & cracking noises while driving. A couple of the pops were so loud it scared me because it sounded like the whole WS cracked, but there were no visible cracks. Just in case I was hearing things, I had my husband ride along & he heard the same noises. A week or two later, I noticed that when the WS was fogging there were stream lines from water on the left inside and I knew those shouldn't be there because the last co. had put in a brand new WS. Later, I finally noticed water dripping in the same spot & I knew it was leaking again. Frustrated & not wanting to deal w/ it, I continued to drive the car with a leaky WS for about week, until I went through a car wash & noticed a strong stream of water running down the left inside of the WS inside the car. The following Monday (today) I called the dealership. I'm taking the car in tonight. I'm suggesting, some sort of extra strength seal & possibly a sway/strut bar to stabalize the vehicle more. If this doesn't work then I want to trade it in for a newer xB or possibly something else. My warranty is only for 100,000 miles & I'm half way there & I don't want to get to the point where I have to start paying to replace any of this when it is obviously a flaw with the car.
Besides the windshield issue, I'm very pleased with my xB. Before it I owned a 2001 Ford Focus, it seems I went from one problem car to another, but hey at least my Scion starts everytime.
I'm very anxious to see what happens tonight at the dealership. I'll keep you guys posted.
I found out about all of the windshield breakage. As of today I have had no problems. I continue to hope that the front end flexing is stopped by the strut bar and is in fact responsible for the windshield problems.
1. If you decide on a strut bar, be sure the bar is straight, either 10 ga. 1 1/4" square tubing or 3/4" diameter thick wall gas pipe or better. 2. The brackets that mount on top of the strut tower need to be 3/16' thick 1'' angle iron welded to the ends of the bar. 3. Everything needs to be a tight fit with absolutely no movement once it is mounted to the two strut studs on both sides.
Most of the strut bars on the market are a joke. They range from a flat strap with bolted joints, to bars that take all kinds of angles to get to the other side. It has to be straight from one side to the other to prevent ANY movement.
I'm very hard nosed about this, It is a very serious problem. It has caused a lot of people a lot of distress.
The new '08 has the same problem. Toyota claimed that the 1st generation windshield breakage was due to the vertical position and the height. Then why is the 2nd generation xB suffering the same problem? It has to be front end sheet metal flexing. They made a couple of design changes, but the "Silly Putty" front end is the same.
Good Luck, David
So I got it replaced through safelite thinking it would be the cheapest without thinking about my warranty. Does anyone know if my warranty is now void because I replaced it elsewhere?
I don't want to have to contact Toyota and have them void my warranty because I replaced the windshield, but my new windshield I got in December is now cracked and veining all over. I can't afford to pay 350 bucks every few months to replace the windshields. I'm ready to just trade in my car and get a prius or something. Anyway, my main question is does anyone know if my warranty is now void? :sick:
Due to it being glass, the dealer told me a Toyota Warranty Claims person would need to see it (one day a week here). I was informed today that they would deny the claim.
The claims person reason... A pit the size of this period (.) caused the crack.
It's not right. The so-called cause of the crack is first, so insignificant that it shouldn't have caused a crack at all AND it's not on the crack! They looked for ANY excuse to deny the warranty claim and refuse to use common sense. I am now forced to sue them in small claims court where I fully believe I can compile a preponderance of evidence to force Toyota to indemnify me.
I ENCOURAGE EVERYONE TO PUSH THE ISSUE. I have just filed a complaint with the NHTSA Office of Defects. I'll keep you all posted as to the progress of my pending and hopefully successful lawsuit against Toyota.
Any suggestions?
after googling this issue, i have discovered this forum, as well as the myscionsucks.com page. i'm wondering what I should do at this point.
Should I attempt to take it to the Toyota Dealership and see what happens, and demand a resolution? Perhaps they will replace it at no charge? I live in Arlington, VA, has anyone had experience with this specific dealership?
Any thoughts? Thanks
Next I'm going to http://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/index.cfm like wheelman said in post 125 to add to the complaints. If you are reading this, do the same. Toyota needs to make a fix for this.
I just made an official complaint. Thanks Wheelman! But to tell you the truth, I am a still a little hot over this. Grrrrrrrrrr :mad: