National **** Screens

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vincenz

Active Member
Joined
May 17, 2008
Messages
650
Location
North West
Car
W209 CLK 200K Coupe
I imagine we have a no name and shame policy here like pistonheads so ill refrain from naming the company in question but they are a Windscreen company with a very similar name to that of the thread title.

At the weekend my windscreen cracked, I think it was the intense heat as i'd left the car in Wales whilst i'd been out on my mountain bike, but when I returned there weere two 12" cracks the length of the windscreen.

No biggie I thought and I rung my insurance who put me in touch with National **** Screens. I told them the details of my vehicle, model year, coupe etc. and they informed me they would send someone out this morning.

They arrived at my place of work and I left them to it, I got a call at 12:30 saying that I needed to come out to my vehicle, alarmed I asked why and they said they'd brought the windscreen of a saloon and it would not fit, however they only found this out after removing my existing windscreen and to make matters worse it was raining.

They said they could source me one for 15:30 if this was ok, as I was at work I said fine, just make sure the car does not get wet inside.

At 15:40 another windscreen person arrived with the correct screen, it had begun to rain rather heavily now and they said that it needed cover for them to continue so we moved the car (with masking tape windscreen) to an underpass near my place of work, whilst dodging the hypodermic needles etc.

It was only when they lifted the bonnet I saw they had removed all the trim under the windscreen right down to the wiper motor, numerous bolts, washer, clips, seals, leaf tray had all been taken off. Myself and the second windscreen man were alarmed at how much was missing, he fitted the screen in 10 minutes, but took a further 40 to fix all the trim back to the vehicle. He advised me to wait an hour to let the seal dry (so 20 mins after he left) I started the car to a very rough idle. I thought it may have been the battery as I'd had problems earlier this year with and the car had been left with the boot and door open, so I drove off which seemed to cure it. Only at a set of lights that it cut out, so I was now 5 miles from work, 20 miles from home with a car that was cutting out every time it started on a dual carriage way.

I got it going again and got home where I had a tinker and found that in the over zealous windscreen strip down the MAF had been removed as well as a couple of vacuum lines into the engine, obviously as they had struggled to get the wiper motor off.

What alarms me (and the point of my post) is that a large, well known company, allows its employees to make such basic errors, I appreciate they cannot train up every employee on every model of vehicle just incase they have to replace a windscreen, but if you're pulling MAF's off and not noticing then what other jubilee, grenade interference clips they are messing with and if I hadn't of been mechanically minded (if it had been my girlfriends car) then this would have been a recovery and dealer / mechanic visit job or even worse if they had disturbed coolant or even brake fluid lines then it is a down right dangerous practice.

Sorry for the rant, I think the lesson learnt here is to ring Auto Glass.
 
I think you have taken this quite well - if that was me and my car I might not be so polite...!!!
 
I rung their 24 hr hotline at about 21:00 to let them know and they said they'll get the branch I dealt with to ring me tomorrow, wouldn't mind but the bloke also left a snap on tool and extension in the battery housing but they didn't seem the slightest bit interested in me getting it back to them, wonder how much they go for on ebay!
 
I avoid compaines like this like the plague! If the insurance is paying, why not have it done in a nice dry dealership with all the necessay tools on hand? There's nothing worse than a car that leaks (after a poorly fitted windscreen).
 
I avoid compaines like this like the plague! If the insurance is paying, why not have it done in a nice dry dealership with all the necessay tools on hand? There's nothing worse than a car that leaks (after a poorly fitted windscreen).

Exactly.Mine was done that way and left for the requisite curing period and
have had no problems whatsoever.

Splitpin
 
I avoid compaines like this like the plague! If the insurance is paying, why not have it done in a nice dry dealership with all the necessay tools on hand? There's nothing worse than a car that leaks (after a poorly fitted windscreen).

Good shout, however its the convenience that sells this service to me, taking it into a dealership would require some time off work.
 
I think using any of the national screen replacement chains can be a lottery if your car is a little unusual or has a few years under its belt. I had a new screen fitted to my XJS last year by one of them & they only bonded the screen on two sides and fitted the sealing rubber on upside down. In other words they left me with a leaky car that creaked.

I could've argued with them but quite simply didn't want them near it again so took it to someone I trusted who did the job properly - yes I know I should've done this the first time but I was busy and wasn't expecting it to fail on the MOT for a small silicone filled chip that had passed the previous four MOT's without a hitch!
 
They are all useless, I hope I never need anyhting to do with them. From experience, an alfa 164 my friend had, 2 windscreen changes both with leaks, my old saab they put the wrong tint on a side window. Yeah, no problem will change it will ring to arrange an appointment, never did.

I hate when I also see their adverts on TV. Oh you have nothing to pay when you have a stone chip, we get it repaired and your insurance will pay, and the process is that we pressurise a substance in it, which as we know, can crack it and then they change the whole screen and charge our insurers even more. Rant over.
 
I have not had any nightmares with these companies. In fact one did me a favour when we had a problem with the rubber seal on the top of the windscreen from a repair prior to when we bought it. I took it to them and recognised the manager was a member from the gym and they glued the rubber back in place and it stayed there - free of charge.
 
The fitment of the screen has been spot on, no wind / water leaks and I even tested it to OEM standards this morning. Its just a shame other areas of the service were lacking.

I complained and they refunded me half the excess (£35) which was nice. I will think twice about using them again.
 

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