A story of whoa is this type R and its insurer Geico

wildbilly32 · Mar 26, 2019

Safelite. Yep, had a significant chip in the windshield of my 09 Rav4. Didn't use insurance because the estimate was so cheap. Dude came out did it in the driveway. Ok good deal fixed. Later found the windshield wiper arm mounting nut covers were not replaced and found both on top of the cowl cover. No biggie. While putting them on I noticed the rubber seal end pieces were not put back in properly. Fixed that and started to worry. Next time I hand washed the car I noticed there was a piece of tape over the VIN that clearly says "Safelite". Never again!

Muggsy · Mar 26, 2019

Yes, Geico sucks. I have been with State Farm since I started driving, seems like a hundred years ago. Had a few significant claims, including a totaled Accord hatchback, a serious accident in an M3 with 15k in damage, and a flooded Lexus GS400. They have always been straight up and easy to deal with.

charleswrivers · Mar 26, 2019

Harlaquin said:
So if you have read my other post a day in the life of a Type R owner. Then you know I have recently had my windshield cracked. No big deal right ? Happens all the time.

Well by morning.

So I call my insurance Geico. They start right off by giving me run around on the type of windshield I want OEM and they wont pay for it. Will only cover aftermarket unless I pay 470 dollars more. Sigh... IM assured its the same standard of windshield. Then IM force through Safelight. I absolutely do not want to use safelight they have a not so great review score around my parts and I read the windshields they use are junk. Standards or not. anyway they don't give me much choice. I very reluctantly after voicing concerns go to the appointment. I chose to do a in shop replacement instead of a at home from the van one. AT first everything was great the place was clean and professional, everyone working there seemed very polite and accommodating and answered all my questions. Even let me take some pictures of the process. Super nice guys.

Job was finished and I drove off down the road after a quick inspection. I stopped down the road to look at it closer and that is when I notice the wind shield is not centered.

Before Can see whole Vin clearly and centered.

After. Part of vin is obscured on right side and its only half showing.

The vin plate illustrates it best but the driver side molding is about a 1/4 inch plus gapped and the passenger side is about 1/16th inch gap with gasket compressed against pillar and on drivers side its all lose and gapped.

this was original gasket

same on bottom before, notice tight fit.

after lose with gaps

windshield standard stamp before and after . I was told they would be same..

I returned to the safelight place to ask about the fitment of the windshield. and the guy says OH it must have moved. WE can take it back out and refit it but will have to wait a week. The other problem is the rear view mirror is no longer centered, even if the windshield is refit the rear view mirror will be off center toward the passenger side by a few inches. I notice this on the way home as I felt I had to lean over to look our mirror.

The problem is as the internet also said in reviews the windshield s they use are smaller then oem so don't fit right. you can sort of see this here in this pics. its smaller and has crappy gaskets.
before and after.

Well to top it all off now my A pillar squeaks like a cricket choir. And when I go around corners there is something sliding around in my dash now. just grrrrrr

So. I call Geico. Well Im told to bad they wont pay for a OEM windshield unless safelight deems it necessary for proper fitment. So they transfer me to safelight, I go over it with safelight and they tell me Geico has to make the decision. I call Geico back and they tell me no it has to be handled by safelight and this time says we will send you to the executive department and they will handle things. so Geico transfers me again to the "executive department" guy answers phone says please hold.... comes back and says I called the shop the manager will call you at some point. Im like what? 2 hours and 7 phone calls back and forth and this is the outcome? Go back to the shop that screwed it up to begin with?

What about the OEM glass? Or the fact that now you want me to go back to the guy who didn't do it right and complain and expect a quality job after that? well I was told shop manager would call me shortly and …. yeah no phone call.

What's the point of ripping out a windshield that doesn't fit correctly to just reseat the same windshield. Not to mention the windshield was a quality one that cost 149.99. Good sun glasses cost more then that.

And the last thing was I got home and was looking over my receipt the paper work said its very important for safety standards for the car to NOT be driving for a period of time after installation for the what ever its called to set. That the info is on the inside of the thing I'm reading... um its blank inside no info... on receipt it says DO NOT drive car for one hour!!! What. I asked then when I left if it was good to go they said yes go ahead and take it and just don't go through car washes. Um for the first hour I was driving corners going over speed bumps.... so did the windshield not set right? They mentioned nothing about the set time.

IM not very happy about any of this and Geico after all the phone calls did nothing.. answered no questions and just kept putting me off on safelight. Safelight can only use the glass they ok. Safelight has no say in it. I have paid thousands apone thousands with no claims ever and they cant even pay for a flippin proper windshield. they said I was welcome too for an extra 470 dollars. that s about the cost of the windshield. whats the point of insurance if im paying for it anyway.

To sum up im not happy I got a jacked up windshield no one wants to do the job correctly, I keep getting shuffled around and the one person that is suppose to call doesn't.

Anyway thanks for reading just had to vent.

I can only give you my experience on my Odyssey back in 2015. It's original glass was stamped Honda and Pilkington, their maker. Then I had a crack requiring total replacement, I filed the claim as I didn't live in a free-replacement state, which covered about 1/2 the cost. I asked the company which I'm 96.4% sure was Safelight, as the replacement was done away from our home, out of state because the crack happened while going on vacation... if they used OEM glass. They said they did. As the Odyssey has a very large windshield, I asked to look at the glass before install. Our original glass actually had a lot of waviness and imperfection to it compared to others I'd seen, and the Odyforums had talked off brand windshields could be a lot worse.

They showed me the glass and the fact it was Pilkington, minus the Honda logo. Claim was through Geico. I can understand Geico not really having a dog in the fight too much... they cut the check. You're probably stuck with making Safelight make it right. I was out for whatever my deductable was, and would have pushed for the Pilkington glass regardless. At least at that time, the Safelight folks who did mine said they didn't use anything other than the OEM glass unless it wasn't available anymore, like on an out of production car. If the install was bad or they used bad glass, I'd just keep.pressing the issue with them.

Harlaquin · Mar 26, 2019

charleswrivers said:
I can only give you my experience on my Odyssey back in 2015. It's original glass was stamped Honda and Pilkington, their maker. Then I had a crack requiring total replacement, I filed the claim as I didn't live in a free-replacement state, which covered about 1/2 the cost. I asked the company which I'm 96.4% sure was Safelight, as the replacement was done away from our home, out of state because the crack happened while going on vacation... if they used OEM glass. They said they did. As the Odyssey has a very large windshield, I asked to look at the glass before install. Our original glass actually had a lot of waviness and imperfection to it compared to others I'd seen, and the Odyforums had talked off brand windshields could be a lot worse.

They showed me the glass and the fact it was Pilkington, minus the Honda logo. Claim was through Geico. I can understand Geico not really having a dog in the fight too much... they cut the check. You're probably stuck with making Safelight make it right. I was out for whatever my deductable was, and would have pushed for the Pilkington glass regardless. At least at that time, the Safelight folks who did mine said they didn't use anything other than the OEM glass unless it wasn't available anymore, like on an out of production car. If the install was bad or they used bad glass, I'd just keep.pressing the issue with them.

see it all depends on the state you live in. I been reading up on it since im going thorough this. some states require insurance to replace only oem, while others require exact matching glass and since most glass is not they also just use oem. so its dependent on your states statues. And you know a insurance company isn't going to do any more then it legally has too. that's why some people on here say well I got OEM, well yes your state requires it. its not because the insurance company is doing it out of the goodness of their heart. Like I said before many states have specific laws on it. But also like I said I live in NC their laws are crap. anything that would protect a consumer in this state is so openly worded that basically there is nothing to enforce. It is why so many companies come to NC because they can get away with anything they want. the state just wants their revenue.

But in my case it is 100% Geico's hand at work not Safelite. Geico has to approve the glass and in this state they only approve after market because that is all the law says they have too. safelite did a shit job but the glass they used and the quality of it is all Geicos fault.

charleswrivers · Mar 26, 2019

Harlaquin said:
see it all depends on the state you live in. I been reading up on it since im going thorough this. some states require insurance to replace only oem, while others require exact matching glass and since most glass is not they also just use oem. so its dependent on your states statues. And you know a insurance company isn't going to do any more then it legally has too. that's why some people on here say well I got OEM, well yes your state requires it. its not because the insurance company is doing it out of the goodness of their heart. Like I said before many states have specific laws on it. But also like I said I live in NC their laws are crap. anything that would protect a consumer in this state is so openly worded that basically there is nothing to enforce. It is why so many companies come to NC because they can get away with anything they want. the state just wants their revenue.

But in my case it is 100% Geico's hand at work not Safelite. Geico has to approve the glass and in this state they only approve after market because that is all the law says they have too. safelite did a shit job but the glass they used and the quality of it is all Geicos fault.

I suppose. I'm not sure state-to-state how the rules change to OEM vs the cheapest thing they can throw in the car to keep the bugs off you. It was under a VA policy at the time, performed in FL. I do know there was a lot of angst over on the Odyforums about really trashy pieces of glass going in as replacements, which made me go out and look at the glass prior to it being installed and looking across it… to make sure it wasn't a wavy mess. That was really the main thing I was looking for. The replacement glass was actually a much better piece of glass than the original. The original one would make your eyes cross if you kind of moved your head back and forth, looking down the length of the glass as everything was oddly distorted. Had the glass been fine though not been a Pilkington... I probably wouldn't have care. The consensus over there was the non-Pilkingtons available for 4th gen Odysseys were quite bad... and was the only reason I'd looked at it at the time.

Nanook · Mar 26, 2019

what a story! That’s just ridiculous. Had a similar issue with my wife’s minivan. I think they replaced the glass twice and the rubber three times. Same issue. They refused to do OEM. On my Jeep Wrangler though, Safelite actually brought out and installed OEM first thing. Blew my mind!!]

swindonctr · Mar 27, 2019

Harlaquin, I wonder if they sourced the wrong part number for the Civic Sedan/Coupe windshield? I had to replace my windshield a month ago, and found this thread very helpful:
https://www.civicx.com/threads/hatchback-sedan-windshield-compatibility.10029/

The photo of your new windshield showed it to be Fuyao, which may be the OEM windshield for the Sedan/Coupe.

Here's the correct part number for the Pilkington glass (Hatchback, including CTR):
PartNo: 73111-TGG-305
GLASS SET, FR. WINDSHIELD (COO)(GREEN)(PILKINGTON)

I also went through Safelite via my insurance company (Farmers). They offer an optional policy term for glass deductible buyback, where for windshield replacements, they drop your deductible down to $100. They also have an optional policy term for OEM equipment only, so there's no question of aftermarket parts. So happy to have them both.

When I started the process with Safelite on my CTR, I requested to talk directly to the shop/branch handling my claim, so I could ensure they ordered the correct part number. They were a bit dodgy with that one, saying "we'll know the correct part based on your VIN". However, I've found that to be unreliable, as I've run into this problem with Safelite and another car, where they kept ordering the wrong one (there were 3 different windshields based on what options your car had). When they finally connected me to the shop directly, I verified the part number with them before setting up the appointment, as well as visually verified when they arrived to install. All went well, and it was a perfect fit.

One more thing, our windshield needs specific Honda OEM trim strips to mount properly, and they ordered that along with the windshield.

Hope this helps!

WindJunkie · Mar 27, 2019

Holy cow, aren't insurance companies incredible? In light of this story, when my insurance goes through renewals in June, I am going to bring this up with Geico as they are my current provider. If they tell me that they will not replace certain parts on my CTR OEM, then I am going to shop for a different insurer. This story is the classic crock of S* that makes everyone hate insurance in the first place. Good luck to you with the rest of this

Overeazy · Apr 1, 2019

Geico replaced my windshield for $50 after it cracked after only 3k miles and it has held up just fine for 14k more miles. Sounds like you got shafted, but they did offer to fix it? Yeah it's frustrating but it's really not that big of a deal, no? Make them come to you and do it while you're at work or something. As for asking for oem glass, why? it's thin and cheap there are a lot of complaints about it cracking, do a search here.

Hayabusa160 · Apr 1, 2019

my coworker had the same issue with safelight but worst lol they installed his windshield incorrectly and we had a week of heavy rain it flooded the inside of his car and shorted everything behind the dash lol

on the bright side they didnt give you the cheap glass you got acoustic glass which reduces noise like the oem one.

HumbleSage · Apr 1, 2019

Sir, if that happened to me, Id' go back to Safelight and....

Honda Civic 10th gen A story of whoa is this type R and its insurer Geico pokie

Sil98 · Apr 1, 2019

I have never been interested in doing business with Geico since many years ago when i found out they buy radar guns for law enforcement departments (nice way to jack up their customers' rates huh?).

We have Progessive on a couple of our vehicles. They tried to raise our rates 8% during the latest 6-month renewal. I was just going to drop them and switch those vehicles to our other insurance company but decided to call them and ask why they were raising our rates. All they could say is there might be a "statewide increase". They asked a few questions about our occupations and educations and ended up dropping our rates a little instead of raising them. And they tried to get us to combine our home insurance with them but i explained i had dropped them like a rock when they tried to increase our rates for that by 50% (again with no explanation for an increase).

I believe the insurance companies try to see who will tolerate increases or will just not notice and pay the higher rates.

keiothic · Apr 1, 2019

Sil98 said:
I have never been interested in doing business with Geico since many years ago when i found out they buy radar guns for law enforcement departments (nice way to jack up their customers' rates huh?).

We have Progessive on a couple of our vehicles. They tried to raise our rates 8% during the latest 6-month renewal. I was just going to drop them and switch those vehicles to our other insurance company but decided to call them and ask why they were raising our rates. All they could say is there might be a "statewide increase". They asked a few questions about our occupations and educations and ended up dropping our rates a little instead of raising them. And they tried to get us to combine our home insurance with them but i explained i had dropped them like a rock when they tried to increase our rates for that by 50% (again with no explanation for an increase).

I believe the insurance companies try to see who will tolerate increases or will just not notice and pay the higher rates.

I think it's a pretty common agenda for insurance company to try and sell more of their services. Just like with any relapsing subscription, companies 'hope' that their users don't pay attention to their own auto-pay billing until it's too late. And most users fall for it. I am also on a 6-month plan with Progressive, so your comment is highly useful for me. I will see how much they'll increase me. Insuring the CTR seems unreasonably expensive, considering most insurance (companies) don't even have the model on their listings. I think they try to pull something out of thin air just like stealerships do.

NHCivicGuy · Apr 1, 2019

All this down talk about Geico. Just to spread some enlightenment, I've had them for years and have used them a few times for windshields (though Safelite) and even a few comprehensive cases that had happened on previous cars. They handled everything perfectly and I always had claim checks and adjustments within days. Repairs were always completed perfectly, for both paint/body and even the windshields. Windshields believe it or not are pretty cheap, especially when getting them at wholesale like Safelite is when dealing with Geico. However, since the car is so new, OEM glass should be no problem being requested, especially given the poor fitment issues you've had. Definitely would be raising the fitment concerns up with Safelite and pushing until the issue is resolved.

Will Solo · Apr 1, 2019

Not a windshield, but when my windows were hit by a dust devil here in Colorado in January, I called my insurance USAA and filed a claim. They said I could go to any window repair place, but they recommended Safelite so I went with them. When I spoke to Safelite, I told them I wanted OEM glass to replace the ones that were damaged. They said they needed to speak to USAA and have them approve it and after a day they got the go-ahead. Safelite should be the one to speak with insurance and get it approved. I know I have USAA and not Geico, but so far they have been solid about letting me get OEM parts vs. aftermarket for my R. Sucks that they did such a shitty job installing, and for Geico to deny you OEM for a car that is relatively new.

A story of whoa is this type R and its insurer Geico

wildbilly32

Senior Member

Muggsy

Senior Member

charleswrivers

Senior Member

Harlaquin

Senior Member

charleswrivers

Senior Member

Nanook

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swindonctr

New Member

WindJunkie

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Overeazy

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Hayabusa160

The Master

HumbleSage

The Driver

Sil98

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keiothic

NHCivicGuy

Senior Member

Will Solo

Senior Member

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