I have just gone over 800 miles in my Cooper S yesterday, when a rock cracked my windshield in the bottom corner of the passenger side. Now the crack is advancing at about 2 mm a mile diagonally across.
Crap.
H

 

Damn man that's a bummer! And so soon too. Talk about teeth gritting irritation.
My simpathies. How did your paintjob fair through the trip?

 

No trip here. I am driving around downtown and back and forth to work and the incident happened in a construction zone on the way home. Just over 800 miles means total mileage on the odomoter, not a trip. So paint is still good, thank god.
Will call the insurance man this morning. :-(
H

 

Morn'n......bummer on the w/s. If you can, monitor the folks as they r&r the old w/s. They may use metal scrapers to get the old one out and might gouge the paint in the w/s channel. This will eventually lead to rust. Never seen a w/s r&r on a Mini, but have on others. Hence the warning.

...Les

 

Depending on the dealer, it wont cost too much to put a new one in. Maybe 300 bucks fitted?? I would not use insurance for it.

 

Construction zones SUCK. You may be able to get whomever is doing the construction to cover the cost if you have a deductible. They should pay for it anyway!

 

I searched on NAM and dozens of people have had these cracks develop. I was on a drive a couple of weeks ago with 15 MINIs and three of them had long cracks at the bottom of the windshield. I am leaving home in a few mintues to deliver the MINI for a new windshield. The dealer denied it under warrenty. Says there was an impact based on a tiny chip at the bottom of the crack. I am paying $250 at a local glass shop and they promised to have it done in two hours after I went in yesterday and made the arrangements. The dealer wanted $600 and to have me make an appointment and leave the car.

From what I gather from talking with the dealer service manager the regional warrenty representative inspects and approves each warrenty. They have guidelines from BMW to deny a warrenty claim where there is a sign of an impact. The thing is that there is a known problem with these windshields stress cracking. A little rock hit should not cause a huge crack. My windshield has several rock hits and they did not make a crack. From what I have seen they only occur along top of the wiper area. I feel that BMW should step up and cover windshields that have stress cracks. This kind of policy leaves me quite displeased. And to think that they have hundreds of millions to spend running a Formula One team which all about building their image.

 

In Florida, by law, motorists automatically get $0 deductible for glass replacement coverage. It is illegal here to drive around with a broken windshield.

If this is not the case in your state of residence, consider obtaining $0 deductible glass coverage from your insurance company.

If the crack is not more than 6 inches in length and it is not within the driver's sight line, it is likely the problem can be repaired without having to replace the windshield.

Call your local Safelite glass installer for more info. They have a patented technique called "Repair Medics" for this type of damage. Can be done in 30 minutes while you wait at home or work, costs substantially less than glass replacement and it is usually covered by insurance:

www.safelite.com

 

Here are pictures of the three MINIs, including mine, on the 15 car ride, that had these stress cracks along the wiper area. When I spoke with the dealer service manager he acknowledged that these stress cracks were a known problem. He said that MINI would warrenty only if there was no sign of impact. But MINI is going out of their way to identify impacts and deny warrenties. From what I have read the cracks are caused by body flex.

 

Exactly what my windshield looked like from a stress fracture after just 400 miles. Crack happend scooting around town, no rocks, etc, but dealer managed to dig in pen and refuse to cover it under warranty (didn't even bother to write it up or enter it into system).

Got PPG glass and great install for just over $300; I advise getting it over the OEM - not only does it seem to be superior quality but I do not see the logic in rewarding the dealers by paying them to do what should be covered under warranty.

 

Sorry to hear about the W/S. I have a MCS 04 Montecarlo. Cracked the W/S three months ago on the Capital beltway. Dealer wanted $800, insurance said use safelite to repair crack as it was no bigger than a dollar bill. "fix" lasted about a month before the crack was way bigger the a dollar bill. After $100 deductable local safelite repair shop did a great job of replacing the whole W/S. I miss the MINI insignia on the W/S but other than that it's fine.

It's funny that this thread seems to be concluding that there is a problem with the original installation because I felt that way too mainly because the W/S cracked pretty easily and before it was replaced it would make all sorts of "movement" noises when driving especially when cornering. Seemed like it was just a very tight fit. Of course I did not notice the reduced noises until the new one was installed, now I get no clicks or tings from the W/S. I think there is some strong eveidence here that there is a problem.

 

Sorry to hear about your windshield but why don’t you just wait for you windshield get a stress crack. Then you get a new windshield replace.
I waited and finally a stress crack and got a new one replace last week.

 

Cracks in that particular spot are a common issue.

The dealer will always get you on the rock damage question. If there's any kind of divot from an impact, they will usually refuse to replace it under warranty.

I have a crack that started at the top of the glass behind the rearview mirror. It grew downward a couple of inches, and then took a left turn and grew another eight inches or so. It looked like a stress crack to me, but the dealer told me that it was caused by debris, because there was a tiny starburst shape in the glass where it started.

 

I just had my Windshield replace. It is supposed to be PPG glass. Does anyone know if the PPG glass has the MINI emblem in the corner?

 

PPG glass does NOT have the MINI emblem on it.

I replaced my OEM MINI windshield with PPG after Global Imports in Atlanta refused to honor my warranty for an obvious stress fracture that passed their silly "pen test".

As crummy as it was for them to treat a customer like this, it turned out great because I got the superior PPG glass installed locally for $236 including genuine replacement moldings, and I have not had a stress fracture since.