Life is (un)funny sometimes...chips and cracked windshield

[vibeinhoutx]

It was a self-fulfilling prophecy...I spent a good part of yesterday and sometime today reading back through most of the postings to catch up and learn from others being a new Vibe owner. I have had the Vibe all of nine days, two of those it was getting leather and tint. I was already planning the hood deflector, which wax to buy, splash guards, etc.I was on my way to the Toyota dealership to pick up the button cover for next to the gear shift (yes, $3.00 at the Toyota parts department is easier than trying to convince a dealer to find/order one). I wasn't going particularly fast, traveling patiently and comfortably less than the posted speed (a friend warned me of a speed trap in the area). An 18-wheeler was passing to the left when a landscaping truck pulling a load of gravel merged onto the freeway from the right. This is one of those trailers that does not have a solid bottom -- it is made of iron grating. It was very windy today, so the truck was wavering a little and each time the trailer shifted a little, it sifted the gravel pelting all of us with gravel. I managed to move away and get past him pretty quickly once the 18 wheeler moved ahead, but not without hearing multiple pings and windshield hits (less than 10 seconds). Oh, to have a Hella horn, it would have blared until his ears bled.Upon inspection, I found about four very visible nicks and chips exposing the black primer (?) beneath the frosty paint on the hood, one where the deflector should have been. Well, it happens eventually. I didn't see any thing on the windshield. Could I be so lucky? I was beginning to come to terms with it all.Later in the evening, on the way to get a bite to eat, the passenger noticed a crack in the windshield about four inches from the bottom on the passenger side. All the glass places are closed at this time, and the crack is already longer than what they can patch. We came out from the restaurant and see that it has already doubled in length. With the cool spell tonight, I expect it to be halfway across the windshield by tomorrow morning. It's moving across and up, but hopefully it will head either up or down all the way before it reaches the driver side. I looked at the windshield more closely and it is not even a star, just a very small nick and now a huge crack. The pain of a $200 deductible. If it were only a quarter inch more to the outside it would have missed the window alltogether.At least I got to drive my 97 Prizm for two weeks before it took a fist-sized rock in the lower front of the hood. Ah, the vision of wrapping my hands around this guy's neck...and the news update at six of another road rage incident. Surely, my punishment for getting caught up in the Vibe worship. Alaskan beauty marks, are they?Thanks for letting me vent.

[NayNa_Lynn]

oh man....that sucks.....really....I know how you feel. My last car was a Volkswagon Beetle....don't laugh!...three days after I got it I had to run up on a curb to keep some old lady in a minivan from totaling it out. Everyone knows how low those are anyway...I had a nasty dent in the sideskirt for quite awhile. My fiance now has 3 tiny chips in his eclipse's windshield that look like water and innumerable chips in the paint where a semi went crazy a while back and he just got his car in July! Anyway, guess what I'm tryin to say is I'm sorry...happens to the best of us!

[joatmon]

That really sucks big time. Too bad there's no way to make the rock spewing trucks liable for the damage they cause. At least now you don't have to worry anymore about when that first damage will happen to the new car. You probably should get some touch up paint on the paint chips to seal them. Let us know what the retail price is for a Vibe windshield, sorry it will cost you $200 to find out.

[AKLGT]

yep that sucks. i had mine for about 10 dys before i had a crack on the passenger side. now it's all the way thru to the edge of the windshield, about a 3rd of it.... but this is alaska, that's why we call it an alaskan beauty mark.

[AKLGT]

oh ya, by the way, welcome to genvibe vibeinhoutx and nayna! hope you stay long and learn a lot!

[Merzbow]

Wow, I would be pissed...I'd take down the plates and blow up the truck at night. I have had mine since August 2002, and I am extremely lucky I haven't gotten any dings besides one from my mom's car door.