Windscreen Cracking MY18 GX4 with heated element

[Nomissr]

My colleague and I have 18 reg'd GX4s with heated screens etc.

Recently I was following a road sweeper and being pebbled dashed! Impact on low right (as seen from driver seat) side of screen edge produced a foot long horizontal ish crack.

More recently my colleague was attacked by a flying stone from a passing lorry - resulting in a horizontal ish crack emanating from the same low right location.

Individually - so what, but 2 vehicles with approx 5000 miles with same type of crack in same area?

 

[NightPHEVer]

Check out my post 'Another windscreen gets cracked' on the General Forum. Mine's a 2014 GX4h but it doesn't have a heated screen. I dread to think what a heated screen costs. My third ding/crack within two years (all caused by very small stones bouncing along the road) happened at precisely the same position on the screen as yours, lower right hand side, right on the outer edge. I'm pretty certain the PHEV's windscreen has an aerodynamic attraction to stones at about 40mph.

My previous two dings were both within the area that the wipers cover though, and niether of those got any bigger. Had to replace screen after the first ding as MoT was due and it would have been a failure. The second ding would also eventually have been an MoT failure but as the lower-right-hand-screen ding and subsequent (10 minutes later) 3 foot crack occured just a few weeks after the second ding, I had to replace the screen anyway. So including the factory fitted item, that's three screens in 15000 miles.

 

[Nomissr]

Interesting!

My previous car had no issues with screens at all so thought maybe the new heated job was the cause! Maybe not!

 

[jaapv]

Well, if you start throwing bricks at the windscreen the brand might not be that relevant. :lol:

 

[NightPHEVer]

Interesting!

My previous car had no issues with screens at all so thought maybe the new heated job was the cause! Maybe not!

Was your previous car a PHEV? I've done 45000 miles in my 2008 Smart Fortwo and its screen has only acquired one small chip (not an MoT failure) in that time. I had a 1998 Jeep Cherokee that had the same undamaged screen for around 14 years.

Now if we find ourselves on a newly gritted road in the PHEV we wince in expectation every time a lorry passes in the opposite direction, and I keep a very generous distance from the vehicle in front. I've even deliberately avoided using newly gritted roads (and don't make me re-live the golf ball moment again - I still have nightmares about that).

Although I've never been a tailgater, maybe the fear of another broken screen has made me an even safer driver than I was before. When my PHEV's screen was just chipped for a while it didn't feel so bad as I felt I had nothing to lose. But then when shortly afterwards it acquired the bottom-right-hand-ding'n'crack as well, I really couldn't believe it.

I would think the reason the PHEV screen cracks so readily if dinged or chipped on the outside edge is because it's a bonded, structural part of the monocoque (as with all new cars), and therefore always under some pressure and tension.

Don't know how the insurance companies feel about this sort of thing though. I fully expect that sooner or later it'll be us the customers who will pay the price.