read a ton about the windshield cracks on the 1st gen xb.

the 2008 windshield seems to slope back a bit more.

they've only been out a couple of months- any comments about cracking or pitting?

 

I'm going on 1200 miles and no pits or cracks yet.

 

my dad has one he got his xb2 in in sacramento that day drove to oregon took a rock to the window and got achipp no crack yet and has been 2 months EZ. But a rock is going to chip any window. I went 3 years in my gen1 before a chip and then crack.

 

thats good news, thanks.

sounds like the new xb windshield has the problem fixed.

 

with about 1000 miles on it I got a quarter size chip in mine.

I went about 15000 before I got a chip in my xb1

 

It looks like other than foreign object damage, there are no inherent flaws that are causing cracks/chips.

 

5k check up revealed NO PROBLEMS!! Knock on wood

 

i got one during the first week of ownership ...and it took almost a week to get a replacement since the car had just came out, so it took a couple of days to order the replacement

what i like about the replacement is the "Made in Japan, to be removed only by the owner" sticker


JC

 

I was driving an xB2 Flexcar w/ 800miles down the I-5 when a truck kicked up a rock. There was no initial damage...couldn't even see a chip. Two hours later a 3-4" crack had developed around a now visible chip.

 

that's how mine pretty much started...a quarter size chip at the bottom/between the wipers...next two days i had two cracks going towards each side almost all the way to the pillars


JC

 

so does that mean this windshield is almost as bad as the previous generation?

none of the cars i've had including a vw thing (vertical windshield) ever cracked.

 

I got the first chip in my window today, but I drive about 200 miles a day mostly on interstate.

 

Glass will crack if something hits it hard enough. There's no real getting around that. I've had all sorts of vehicles catch rocks in the windshield and either chip, or in some cases crack. The more vertical a windshield is, the more likely it is to crack/chip vs. scare the crap out of you and have the rock bounce over the car.

I've had the following vehicles suffer crack/chips:

- 1970 VW Beetle convertible (had to replace)
- 1976 Camaro
- 1987 Mitsubishi Montero (had to replace)
- 1996 Honda Civic
- 2000 VW Golf
- 2005 Xterra
- 2006 Frontier - This one I didn't even realize at first. I can't remember anything hitting it but when I looked, sure enough, there was a rock hit below the wiper that caused a crack clear across the windshield. (had to replace)

Not all these cracks/chips warranted replacing the windshield, but they did happen.

You seem to have been lucky to never have suffered a rock hit that damaged your windshield. I wouldn't really attribute that to all your vehicles having superior windshields.

ps - When you created this thread, I really thought you were asking about windshields that seemed to crack very easily or without cause. I did read of problems like this with early model Honda Elements.

 

[quote="Bancho"]Quoted for truth. My Blazer caught a piece of rock salt and shattered like porcelain. My xB has just as many miles and remains crack-free. It's all luck, people.

In the case of the Element, it was revealed that improper body manufacture on the 2003's was causing some windshields to crack more or less at random. A service bulletin revealed that, essentially, the part the windshield sat on was uneven, so any kind of impact (or heat or cold) would cause the glass to crack. Honda ended up warrantying a bunch of windshields well into the 60,000-mile mark.

There are gen 1 owners to this day that claim the xB was subject to the same sort of stress cracks, apparently believing that two completely unrelated, competing manufacturers would make the exact same design mistake, based on the fact that the vehicles in question were both...square. I maintain that the majority of these people need to learn to follow gravel trucks more than two car lengths back and avoid construction zones. Let's face it, people, it's a vertical pane of glass.

I have only heard one convincing argument from a first-gen xB owner that produced sufficient evidence of an actual legitimate stress crack.

...in ANY case, it's all totally moot, because it's a completely different vehicle design. You guys are on your own for this one.

On the plus side, this does give us something to bond over - our fictional first-gen "stress cracks" and your fictional second-gen "blind spots."

 

[quote="ZOMGXB"]My xB1 just got a stress crack. I googled (to see if it was an issue) and found all sorts of sites that dealt with this. It is actually how I discovered this site. The most verbose site was this one: http://www.myscionsucks.com/

It is dedicated to his issue. I have a rock chip in my car that I had fixed (so no crack would spread) several months ago. That's normal stuff. When a crack just starts forming, overnight I might add, from the edge of the windshield, and when you go online you find that a LOT of people are having the same problem, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out something is up.

This seems to be an issue with the Minicoopers as well, btw.

I've owned 28 cars in my life. This is the first stress crack I've gotten so far.

 

I got my first pit on the way home from the dealer when I got my fog lights installed saturday. Talk about a high to low moment! I was driving just about to get off my exit and then BAM I heard that rock smack I thought for sure it would of cracked or put in a big chip, but luckily only a pit that they told me didn't need replaced or repaired. I just hate how I was not close to any other car and it happened. A truck must of really kicked up a rock because I was clueless to where it came from

Oh well, at least the windshield lives to see another day! Im on my second week exactly with my xB!

 

The guy who made that website went through like 7 windshields in a period of months. I still maintain that stress cracks are impossible to diagnose from one event. Everybody knows that windshield cracks expand, yes, even overnight...especially this time of year with the huge difference in temperature from day to night. You'll need a second or third broken windshield before you can convince that rocket scientist of yours that it's a manufacture issue...maybe more, since you apparently have a documented problem with rocks flying at your car, and it was already a compromised windshield. You really think a sheet of glass with a chunk missing from it can be "fixed" good as new?

I'm not trying to be a dick here, I'm just saying, that just because 5000 people on the internet THINK they have stress cracks doesn't really mean anything at all. Have you noticed that the vehicleswith "problems" are the ones with incredibly tight-knit communities? The Mini Cooper people love each other just as fanatically as we do. Maybe normal vehicle wear and tear looks like a more significant problem because there's thousands of us that do nothing but talk about our cars.

i'm sorry that I'm kind of being an ___ here, but it bothers me to see people put their critical thinking skills on hold in favor of mass panic. One guy on the Gen 1 board was complaining about the 'defect', saying he was on his fifth windshield. It sounded pretty bad...until you noticed that his userpic was him drifting his Scion.

On gravel.

I'm just saying...one crack in an already-broken windshield does not a defect make. I'd hold off on making that website just yet. ;)

 

Mine cracked this weekend about 6"s long now

 

So, are you telling me that a rock chip in a windshield, in the middle, compromised my windshield so that a stress crack appeared on the passenger side edge, just above the side mirror? That is a little far fetched. And if it is true, there is even a more serious problem with these windshields than I thought.

Regarding the fact that I have a rock chip implies that I "...apparently have a documented problem with rocks flying at...” my car. That is also ludicrous. What a single rock chip implies is that I actually drive my car - nothing more. Every car I have ever owned has eventually ended up with SOME kind of rock chip. For crying out loud, we don’t even have non-paved roads around here in the part of Seattle where I live (Renton/Bellevue). The chip I DID get was from a large chunk of metal coming up from the car in front of me when we were both going less than 25 mph, just leaving a traffic light.

As far as getting it fixed “as good as new”, that is not what I expect. If they can fix the stress crack without replacing the windshield, I’m fine with that. But there is this:

Subject 2006 Scion xB Windshield crack

Response (Davon) 05/25/2007 03:42 PM
Thank you for contacting Scion.

We are sorry to hear of the concerns you are experiencing with the windshield on your 2006 xB.

The Comprehensive warranty for your windshield is 3 years or 36,000 miles, whichever comes first. The Scion warranty period begins on the date the vehicle is first delivered to the original purchaser or placed into service.

Warranty covers manufacturer caused conditions. Inspection of your xB at your local Toyota dealership would determine warranty coverage. We apologize, but repairs necessary due to external factors such as environment are not covered under warranty.

Your email has been documented at our National Headquarters under file #xxxxxxxxxxx. Please contact us to further discuss your vehicle concerns. We would be happy to assist you if possible. You may contact us directly at 1-866-70-SCION or by email at Contact Us.

Thank you for your interest in Scion.

Sincerely,
Davon Pouncy
Scion Customer Experience


The windshield is warranted. If it breaks due to normal use – you know, like an engine that drops a rod even though it has had normal maintenance and has not been over-reved – it is defective and the warrantee will cover it. If the dealership has the option of saying, regardless of the absence of an impact point, that an impact caused it, the warrantee is worthless. If this really IS a case of people just taking advantage, it will be a rare occurrence. In this case it is not.

Lastly, my car is garaged both at home and at work. The weather this August has been unbelievably mild – mostly in the high 60’s and low 70’s. But that is not relevant because plenty of my 28 cars have been exposed to temperatures as low as 25 below and 109 above (not counting interior temperature). I have washed it a grand total of four times and in every case, it was early morning with mild temperatures. I don't bother to wash it in the winter.

Your semi-rabid response is not reasonable nor justified. I have a suspicion you have some skin in this game. I, on the other hand, still love my Scion. It is the perfect vehicle on the market for my needs and not even the xB2 comes close. For crying out loud, it is 600 lbs heavier (25%!!) and gets 5mpg worse mileage. It is designed for a completely different demographic. I have debated not even bothering to fix the window.

All that said, it is obvious to anyone (like me) that has been around cars for any length of time in the manner in which I have, that this is a serious problem and I would fully expect them to honor their warrantee unless they can prove an impact caused it. And it’s mere existence is proof it is a stress crack unless they can show other evidence that proves otherwise.

And regarding the guy at the myscionsucks site: if he has had many cars that have the same problem and drives on a lot of dirt and gravel roads, his case holds no water. However, if his situation and past is similar to mine, his case holds a great deal of water.

I wonder how my windshield would have fared if it HAD BEEN exposed to extreme weather. It lasted almost a year before it got the first stress crack I have ever seen in any of my 28 cars as well as any of my friends cars.

Lastly, when I got my first rock chip my friends and I joked that, due to the near verticle slope of the windshield, I would probably get a lot of rock chips. I can live with that. I would just get them plugged immediately and that would be that. Stress cracks due to poor design and/or installation are another thing entirely and I would expect the warrantee to cover them as well as any other warranted part of the car.

That is only reasonable and what is expected in this particular civilized culture.

 

I got two pits on my first trip from Detroit to Chicago. This was about 3 months ago and, so far, they aren't any worse and I haven't got any more.