[gptoy96]

My wife called me the other day, said window was broken on the 4Runner. Damn I thought! After work I finally got to look at it and it turned out it wasn't the little window of the back door as I thought she had described to me, it was the very back side window. It almost looks like an impact right near the edge of the glass which shattered it. Weird thing is she didn't hear any big bangs while driving, and hadn't noticed anything out of the ordinary until she seen the window "bow" when the door closed. Another weird thing now is there's also a good sized ding on the front fender, almost looks like a scrape and whatever it was dented the sheetmetal. (Back side of the fender just above the flare on the front driver's side). Almost looks like kids maybe up to no good and throwing rocks? Maybe attempted break-in? There were no valuables in the back and would be the weirdest window to pick for breaking in, then again theives aren't the smartest people out there....
I could probably get the fender fixed but it's scraped through the paint so paintless dent probably wouldn't work, and if I get the fender worked on I'm always paranoid that the paint won't match and the fender will stand out like a sore thumb after so I'll probably just touch up paint it and suck it up. Character scar I guess.
The glass hadn't fallen through yet but was all spider-webbed, rather than just wait for it to implode on a big bump while driving I went home that night and knocked it out, cleaned up the glass and filled the big hole with classy cardboard, lol.
Anyhoo, not a cool mod, but a necessary one anyways. Will call around on Monday for prices, glass itself is $320 from Toyota but they don't install, I'll have to go elsewhere I guess. Man for that price I could've installed the spoiler I've been wanting to get for so long. Just had to vent a bit.... (sorry for the big pics).

[magert54]

looks good. Hope to see the window back and fixed soon.

[gptoy96]

Originally Posted by magert54

looks good. Hope to see the window back and fixed soon.

Thanks, it works...

Crappy start to the weekend...

[Sonicpilz]

Doesn't insurance cover all glass? I had a driver's door window shatter when I rolled it down a few years ago in my Camaro. Insurance company sent out a guy from an auto glass company to my home to install one for me, free.

[SMEE]

Nice quick fix Gptoy, you obviously know that ductape leaves a horrible residue (after removed) to ALL surfaces. Good job keeping it on the broken glass. I cringe when I see vehicles on the road with ductape touching their paint, because when they take it off, they've got another problem!

[zerowkul98]

Damn! I wonder what kicked-up to do such damage! I like that sweet cardboard cover tho!

DId you try Conicelli's for the part? Maybe it'll be cheaper?

Conicelli Parts Center

[gptoy96]

Originally Posted by Sonicpilz

Doesn't insurance cover all glass? I had a driver's door window shatter when I rolled it down a few years ago in my Camaro. Insurance company sent out a guy from an auto glass company to my home to install one for me, free.

My insurance will cover, but a $250 deductible. I'll probably still go this route as it'll definately be more than 250 to get it fixed. I live in a smaller city so I'm doubting we get the at-home service. That'd be sweet though!

Originally Posted by SMEE

Nice quick fix Gptoy, you obviously know that ductape leaves a horrible residue (after removed) to ALL surfaces. Good job keeping it on the broken glass. I cringe when I see vehicles on the road with ductape touching their paint, because when they take it off, they've got another problem!

Thanks! Yes I've seen plenty of vehicles drive around all duct taped up, makes me cringe too. I made sure all the tape didn't touch the truck. Glad you noticed!

Originally Posted by zerowkul98

Damn! I wonder what kicked-up to do such damage! I like that sweet cardboard cover tho!

DId you try Conicelli's for the part? Maybe it'll be cheaper?

Conicelli Parts Center

I'm wondering that myself too, the only thing out of the normal routine that day was my wife was at a house giving a quote for cleaning in a neighbourhood we don't usually go to. It's a nice, new, clean neighbourhood but you never know I guess. That's what made me think kids maybe? I asked her if a City lawnmower happened to drive by while she was there but she never seen any either.

Thanks for the link, unfortunate thing about us Canadians is they nail us for shipping at the border. I'll give it a go though and see how it works out!

[K.C.]

This is terrible.

At least it's a glass which can be removed & replaced, and you can't tell if it was ever damaged.

Be sure to vacuum the trunk twice & use a lint brush to pick up the glass particles.

[gptoy96]

Originally Posted by K.C.

This is terrible.

At least it's a glass which can be removed & replaced, and you can't tell if it was ever damaged.

Be sure to vacuum the trunk twice & use a lint brush to pick up the glass particles.

That is a plus for sure, I'm going to see what a body shop can do about the dent in the front fender too, but it's not overly big. For sure I went through the truck a couple of times with the vacuum. Those little glass bits get everywhere! I'll probably be sucking those up for a while yet.

[gptoy96]

So I can't beleive how involved this has become. If I could get some advice from some guys with bodyshop experience that would be cool. This is a bit of a story...

First, an update. I went around and got some window quotes, they varied from $270-$800! Then I went around to get some body quotes to get the front ding fixed too, those varied from $1400-$2200 (back glass included for a one-stop shop kind of deal)! One thing the shops mentioned is that silver is a tough color to match properly, they'd have to blend from driver's door to over the hood as well as paint the fender. I'm pretty picky when it comes to my paint, the last thing I wanted was to have my fender "pop out" because of a different shade of silver from the rest of the truck. It would make it seem the truck was in a wreck when all it was, was a small ding. After a bunch of thinking I finally figured I'd just replace the glass myself and touch up paint the front fender. To me, the small ding would bug me less than having a mis-matched fender, a bit of a character mark even, so I figured I'd just suck it up and leave it at that.
Back to the glass quote, the one place I usually deal with was $20 more than speedy autoglass, going against everything I ever do under the premis of "you get what you pay for" I decided to save $20 and go with speedy (this will come back to haunt me....). 2 days after the glass was ordered I dropped off my truck to get "fixed". After work I picked it up, and all around the window, on my paint all around the window was their black primer/glue or whatever it was. It looked like crap so I talked to the installer and he said he had used a knife to cut out the old rubber seal around the window ( ! ) and had scratched my truck inside the inset of the glass all around the window and used the primer/glue to cover it for rust protection! Unacceptable... Just imagine what running a blade around the perimeter of the window from the center of it out towards the body might do...
I talked to the manager and came to the agreement they'd bring it to a body shop, pull the window and fix the paint, put window back in. Fine, that'll work good I figured. I dropped the T4R off, and talked it over with the body guy that they would only paint INSIDE the lip of the window, not on the outside quarter (again, didn't want mis-matched panel). After 3 extra days of waiting as Speedy ended up breaking that window also pulling it I went to pick it up Friday. As I was driving in, 100ft away and just glancing at my T4R waiting in the parking lot the first thing I noticed is the back quarter had been re-painted...! I could see it instantly. Now I'm getting pissed... I talked it over with the guy, let him know I wasn't happy. He came up with some story about Speedy scratching it badly pulling yet another window out of it and had to paint, whatever... Now I have it re-scheduled for next Monday to go in again and they're going to carry the blending further to the passenger door and halfway across the back hatch.

This is where I need the advice/opinions, I don't know what I should do. I don't want to suck it up and leave as-is, but I also don't want to make it worse. Would blending up the back passenger door and halfway across back hatch make it worse? Should I fight to get it blended all the way up to the hood so the whole side would look more uniform? In my head I'm thinking it'd be less noticeable if it were done this way. Not sure about the hatch either, should it get blended to the opposite edge? The hatch edge near the quarter is way different color, perhaps re-painting to opposite edge before it turns the corner to the passenger side of truck would be the way to fix? (Can I rub real hard and get the new paint off and get my old paint back? lol... joking). I also have 3M on the hood/front fender edge so not sure how that'll work in the equation.

Now that it's gotten to this point I'm wondering if I should (or still can) go through insurance, get the front ding fixed as well if it's all getting painted anyways. Apparantly I'll have to file a police report since it was over $2K first.

This so pisses me off, when I buy a vehicle I look for crash signs and made sure the one I bought was free of them. Now because of some novice glass installer I have to get all this done and everytime I'll look at it from here on out it'll frustrate me. If/when I decided to sell some day it'll be fun explaining to potential buyers why my whole drivers side got painted because of a glass replacement and not a big wreck... sigh... Sorry for the long story/rant..

[SMEE]

Man, thats f-ed up. I don't know what you should do, other than get the whole truck repainted. Hopefully someone else is more knowledgeable on this topic than me, but I would get them to paint as much of the vehicle as possible and then you figure out some other way to get the rest done to match. What a pain in the arse.

[gptoy96]

Originally Posted by SMEE

Man, thats f-ed up. I don't know what you should do, other than get the whole truck repainted. Hopefully someone else is more knowledgeable on this topic than me, but I would get them to paint as much of the vehicle as possible and then you figure out some other way to get the rest done to match. What a pain in the arse.

I'm awfully tempted to go for this option. Although that has it's own problems too (paint leftovers on trim, rubber seals etc.) at least it wouldn't jump out at me as these options have me picturing.