Pages

Monday 5 November 2012

More Raspberry, and Freda's windscreen

A small PCB arrived today, smelling faintly of Raspberry! Ladysolly's giftwrapping it for me.

A few days ago, a stone hit Freda's windscreen as we were bowling along the motorway, making a small chip in the screen. I said "Drat", or similar, and made a mental note to get it seen to before it became a real problem.

When ladysolly and I went to go out yesterday, the chip had turned into a full sized crack, and we decided that it wouldn't be safe to drive at full speed like that.

Today, I found out how much people wanted for a replacement windscreen. It was about £1100. But, as a special deal, I could have it for £800. Ugh. So I did a bit of Googling, and made a few phone calls, and I found a video of how to replace a Freelander windscreen by Paul of Glasstec Automotive.

So I thought, here's someone who knows what he's doing to the extent that he's willing to show people how, so I Googled Glasstec Automotive, got their number (0845 658 6545) and spoke to Paul. Yes, he can do it, and it's £375, including VAT, and that's for a Pilkington Glass windscreen, heated and with rain detector, just like the one I have now.

I could have gotten it slightly cheaper at Budget Windscreens, but I thought, expertise is worth paying for. He'll be round tomorrow to sort Freda out.

I also found that I can claim it back on insurance without affecting my No Claims Bonus. I'm slightly sceptical about that, but I suppose the insurance company take the view that the probability of a windscreen breakage is pretty much independent of how good a driver you are, and there's no way I could have avoided it, other than to drive very very slowly. So I pay the first £100.

And that, I think, explains why each person I called asked me if it was an insurance company paying - I'd guess there's a chunk added to the bill if it is, because in that case, I don't care how much it costs, and the insurance company can't be bothered to shop around for a better deal.


No comments:

Post a Comment