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Soccer ball 1, windshield 0

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On our way home from Victoria, BC, we stopped to visit my daughter and her family near Portland for several hours. There's limited parking in her neighborhood, so we ended up several houses down the street from hers. Later when we were out front playing with the grandkids, we heard a car alarm honking down the street, and thought nothing of it. You always hear bogus alarms going off, right? A little later I pulled my phone out to check something or other, and there was a Tesla alert telling me it was my alarm we'd been hearing. I had my phone on buzz-only mode, and I rarely feel that in my pocket when I'm doing something like running around with grandkids, so I hadn't noticed the alert in realtime. So I walked down the street to check out the car, still figuring it was something benign, like someone bonked the car while walking by.

Nope! The windshield was shattered in a lovely sunburst pattern, centered almost perfectly in the glass, radiating all the way to the edges in the case of a few of the cracks. S***! I hopped inside, and pulled up Sentry. The video shows two boys about 10 kicking a soccer ball back and forth along the street. Then comes the fateful shot. One shot goes left of where the kid intended, lofts out of the field of view of the forward camera, then comes back in bigger than life and bounces off the glass. You can actually see the glass flex a bit at the moment of impact. The last frame of the clip is the other kid running into view, looking straight at the window, mouth open in a circle, with an expression that says, "Oh no!" It's kinda cute, actually.

So I recruited my son-in-law, and he recognized one of the boys, and led me to the right house. I met his mom. Kid IDed the other kid, and we went over together and met the other mom too. Much discussion and phone calls to the moms' partners. Bottom line is the two families have promised to reimburse, though they were discussing among themselves the distribution of responsibility, and whether to file an insurance claim or pay out of pocket. I don't care so long as they come through.

Here's the view from inside at a Supercharger after we got back on the road.
2023-05-27 14-38-49.jpg

Look closely and you can also see the shadow of the crack pattern on the dash.

We made it the 300 miles home, but the cracks are pretty annoying, especially when the light hits just wrong. One crack goes in front of the cameras, causing the car to intermittently think it's raining, and turn on the wipers.

Tomorrow I'll work on getting it replaced. (Safelite has given a price of about $1900, including over $600 to calibrate the cameras, which seems crazy--I mean, what's their hourly labor rate?)

I'm really surprised a soccer ball could beat a windshield. Shows what I know!
 
Funny story, unlucky strike if you will.
Regarding prices of windshield replacements, that’s an insane price.
My local car glass service quotes exactly 500$, although their previous work was a little subpar.
Just got another windshield replacement, I have yet to see the invoice on that (insurance will cover).

Tesla quoted me 2200$ dollars, before canceling the appointment as they don’t do that repair at all (not sure why the app and service center sets up appointment then? But whatever, Tesla being Tesla)

Good luck
 
Yep. I called USAA the day after the incident. They didn't even want to make a note on my record, and said there's no time limit to file a claim on this.

And yes, of course I feel exposed on this until they actually make good on their promises. We'll see!
I think it's lucky that it's glass and a claim should be relatively painless if they back out and you end up filing. Mine was slight collision damage on an older car, so if I had ended up filing I would have been on the hook for my deductible, which I keep fairly high to save on premiums. I suspect the other guy was uninsured, so it would have been a huge hassle trying to go after him in small claims court or anything. I was forced to be a jerk after he tried to back out. Luckily, he finally ended up paying, but I vowed to never give anyone the benefit of the doubt on car claims after that.
 
For anyone fascinated by my tale, here's the update.

I drove to Bend and back yesterday, about 184 miles each way. On the way there, the wipers would come on at random, non-rainy times, I assume because the crack in front of the cameras would sparkle and look like rain.

But they replaced the windshield very quickly and I was on my way for $1164, two bucks above the estimate.

One of the two parties involved has already paid me his half by PayPal, and the other is promising a check in the next day or two.

So it's all looking good!

Oh, PS: Did I mention Safelite included a non-optional $675 charge to calibrate the cameras? The service rep at Tesla said there is no need. The car does this by itself. Can you say rip off? He couldn't even imagine what Safelite would actually do.
 
On the way there, the wipers would come on at random, non-rainy times, I assume because the crack in front of the cameras would sparkle and look like rain.
Non-rainy time? In Oregon? I call "fake news"! :)

Oh, PS: Did I mention Safelite included a non-optional $675 charge to calibrate the cameras? The service rep at Tesla said there is no need. The car does this by itself. Can you say rip off? He couldn't even imagine what Safelite would actually do.
Maybe at one point in time there was a calibration procedure that needed Tesla Service (as opposed to the car doing it itself). Then again, it's probably Safelite enacting a form of Tesla Tax.
 
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On our way home from Victoria, BC, we stopped to visit my daughter and her family near Portland for several hours. There's limited parking in her neighborhood, so we ended up several houses down the street from hers. Later when we were out front playing with the grandkids, we heard a car alarm honking down the street, and thought nothing of it. You always hear bogus alarms going off, right? A little later I pulled my phone out to check something or other, and there was a Tesla alert telling me it was my alarm we'd been hearing. I had my phone on buzz-only mode, and I rarely feel that in my pocket when I'm doing something like running around with grandkids, so I hadn't noticed the alert in realtime. So I walked down the street to check out the car, still figuring it was something benign, like someone bonked the car while walking by.

Nope! The windshield was shattered in a lovely sunburst pattern, centered almost perfectly in the glass, radiating all the way to the edges in the case of a few of the cracks. S***! I hopped inside, and pulled up Sentry. The video shows two boys about 10 kicking a soccer ball back and forth along the street. Then comes the fateful shot. One shot goes left of where the kid intended, lofts out of the field of view of the forward camera, then comes back in bigger than life and bounces off the glass. You can actually see the glass flex a bit at the moment of impact. The last frame of the clip is the other kid running into view, looking straight at the window, mouth open in a circle, with an expression that says, "Oh no!" It's kinda cute, actually.

So I recruited my son-in-law, and he recognized one of the boys, and led me to the right house. I met his mom. Kid IDed the other kid, and we went over together and met the other mom too. Much discussion and phone calls to the moms' partners. Bottom line is the two families have promised to reimburse, though they were discussing among themselves the distribution of responsibility, and whether to file an insurance claim or pay out of pocket. I don't care so long as they come through.

Here's the view from inside at a Supercharger after we got back on the road.
View attachment 942341
Look closely and you can also see the shadow of the crack pattern on the dash.

We made it the 300 miles home, but the cracks are pretty annoying, especially when the light hits just wrong. One crack goes in front of the cameras, causing the car to intermittently think it's raining, and turn on the wipers.

Tomorrow I'll work on getting it replaced. (Safelite has given a price of about $1900, including over $600 to calibrate the cameras, which seems crazy--I mean, what's their hourly labor rate?)

I'm really surprised a soccer ball could beat a windshield. Shows what I know!

What is your deductible for the windshield? I have Travelers and before that AllState....both $100 at Safelite.
 
IMHO, The Tesla glass is really really weak. I've had two windshields crack in ~2.5 years, and I've had zero windows crack in the prior 10 years on different cars.

I don't know if it's weak, but it's definitely softer than glass in my other cars. I've had 3 minor stone impacts leave large enough pits in the windshield to motivate efforts to seal them up.
Luckily, I caught and sealed them before they could spread, but I can still see them.

The glass also covers an unusually large surface area, which increases the probability of an impact with a foreign object.
And even if something relatively soft comes in contact with a huge pane of glass, the impact will induce a larger than normal deflection movement.
However, in the case of OP, the cracking seams to originate from one fixed point, and not a fish-eye that would be typical of a larger impact area from a softer object.

Either way, this gives me additional pause to contemplate the projected longevity of even bigger and even more expensive (not so bullet proof) panes of CyberTruck glass...
 
Hey, follow-up question on this, especially after above comments on the quality of the glass. Our car was built in July 2018. I seem to recall that some years later (2020?) Tesla made several updates to Model 3 to reduce cabin noise, and I think one of those was a change to the windshield glass. (I may be making this up.) Anyone remember? And so would my new replacement windshield be the improved glass? Or is it a different, incompatible part?
 
Hey, follow-up question on this, especially after above comments on the quality of the glass. Our car was built in July 2018. I seem to recall that some years later (2020?) Tesla made several updates to Model 3 to reduce cabin noise, and I think one of those was a change to the windshield glass. (I may be making this up.) Anyone remember? And so would my new replacement windshield be the improved glass? Or is it a different, incompatible part?


Like 85% sure that was just the front windows (double pane glass)- not the windshield.
 
I'm also pretty sure it was only the side windows too. I've had both (20 and 23) and I didn't notice any improvement in reducing noise with the thicker windows.

Pretty much all of the road noise comes from the floor. Windows aren't going to fix that.
 
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