Moral Question about price & service

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Sneck

Moral Question about price & service

Post by Sneck »

Earlier today I was repairing a two-chip windshield. Both bullseye's. One was pretty straight forward, the other... I could tell it had been repaired by somone else previously, and I advised the customer that upon inspection of the second bullseye that it was indeed repaired before and that I could not repair it.

My customer told me that he had not had it repaired before. This is about the time I realized that the vehicle was older than my customer! Well, I'm not going to insult my customer by telling him that he is mistaken. So I told him that I can see that it has been repaired before, but glass is a funny thing and perhaps I am wrong about it being previously repaired.

I did the re-repair knowing full well that it would not turn out, and it turned out exactly as I had expected... no change in appearance at all.

The moral question came to my mind about what to do for this customer on pricing... I waisted resin and time on a repair that I knew was previously repaired and would not turn out, and I advised the customer that it was repaired before and that I would not be able to repair it, but as I said, he told me to repair it because he knew it had never been repaired before.

Given this circumstance, should I charge for the attempted re-repair???

As I was grappling with this question and I began to fill out my invoice, the customer advised that he had a couple surfice nicks he wanted me to fix up. So I repaired them also.

In the end... I did not charge for the re-repair in this case because I made up for it by getting the extra money on repairing the surface nicks.

What would you have done in this situation???
Dave M
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Re: Moral Question about price & service

Post by Dave M »

Sneck,
I'd say that you handled it pretty well! You did not charge for the re-do but made some extra money by filling in the chips.
Before starting the re-do, I would have made the customer understand what to expect for the finished repair. You're the expert and knew that it was repaired before. You mentioned that the car was older than the customer.....did you ask him if he had purchased the car new or used? If used, than it was repaired thru the previous owner.
When I have this situation, one fresh break and one old repair, I'll ask the customer if he would accept the windshield with just the fresh break repaired and leaving the old repair as is. If the answer is no, I'd suggest a replacement and move on. If yes, than you've just made yourself a sale!
mrchip

Re: Moral Question about price & service

Post by mrchip »

Hi Sneck I have been in that situation before and i would not have
charged for the retry just chalk it up too experience people are not
always truthfull i went to do one repair today and when i inspected the repair
i asked if it was a used car he said it wasn't and finally admitted that
he tried to fix it with a kit from parts store so I lost the job would
you have charged a service call? by the way if somebody has used
rainex on window it will also look done and not take chemical:)
GlassStarz
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Re: Moral Question about price & service

Post by GlassStarz »

Alcohol swabbed on the chip will remove the rainX its a wax and easily removed but usually you dont notice its there until mid repair I remove the bridge clean the break and start over "A true pain in the keester"
Sneck

Re: Moral Question about price & service

Post by Sneck »

GlassStarz, is there any danger in introducing alcohol "into" the break when using it to remove rainex? I suppose that if some did get into the break that it would evaporate pretty quick because of its high evaporation rate.

Your thoughts???
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Chips_Away_Windshield_Repair
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Re: Moral Question about price & service

Post by Chips_Away_Windshield_Repair »

Several years ago Delta had a powder compound on sale I bought to remove
Rain-x rather than alcolhol and never used it. Guess I need to ask Jeff or Matt how to use it.
Any expierence with it with y'al?
Chips Away's 40' Monaco Exec. ,'05 Honda CR-V,
Channel 13 Graybeard
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repare-brise

Re: Moral Question about price & service

Post by repare-brise »

Yes introducing alchool can possibly cause a problem, alcohol is a product that diisolves resin(we use it to clean injectors). If using it to clean a break a small hit with the torch will burn off the excess alchool that might have been introduced into the break. Rain-x contains a high percentage of silicone, so a silicone remover would be more apt for removing it, but also contaminating the break further should be considered.

Merci
maxryde
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Re: Moral Question about price & service

Post by maxryde »

I have learned to redo repairs as a result of this forum and while the folks who sponsor the forum do not recommend the practice I will try to explain what I have learned here and you can decide for yourself how to proceed.

In the case of a repair attempt by someone else,

"admitted that he tried to fix it with a kit from parts store"

or "upon inspection of the second bulls eye that it was indeed repaired before and that I could not repair it"

to say that it cannot be repaired is not all together accurate, the process of de bonding a repair is difficult but manageable with caution.

In order to de bond a person has to raise the temperature high enough to make the existing resin let loose. Doing this is of coarse is a hazard for many reasons. The crack out issue needs no explanation.

To do a redo you bring the temperature up using a torch in intermittent intervals applying pressure in the impact point until you can watch the break open is all that is required to accomplish this. The pit filler will need to be scraped out. I know that it sounds crazy but after I read about it here I had to find out about this procedure. The other dangers are that you can damage the laminate by over heating and/or you will delaminate the glass. When you reinject it will become very apparent. These repairs will seldom look better than when you begin and should only be done to stabilize the WS.

You gotta ask yourself is this the best coarse of action in this situation? You see at some point a person just has to get a replacement. I have done it on occasion as I do a fair amount of logistics work and if we get a repair that was done in the dark while the weather was too moist or following a carwash that was not dried correctly I will attempt to redo the repair. I have been very lucky to date I have not had to replace a shield for having used this procedure and my customers appear to be happy with our work so.... I also saw the recomendation to use alcohol to remove rain-x and while it is not recomended as it will desolve the lami it takes a while to do this and the stuff the WS Mfg's use to desolve the lami is much stronger than you or I get sooo....

Now your gonna say that's too much heat, huh Jeff (not recomended by the forum's sponsor)............... but that is the way WS's are made!! (high temps)
And "that is pretty agressive" to which I say I agree.... but knowing how to is a good thing. How can you know too much? Not to mention I do use the knowledge on occation!! Just my opinion!! Scott
My best mentor one said " be fair with your priceing but never too low, be honest with your customer/competition, when the day is done be sure you have done "good works", and always leave something of value on the barganing table!!

While my friend and trainer/ mentor Ray has moved on, his words live.
jonnyques
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Re: Moral Question about price & service

Post by jonnyques »

I to have done many re repairs. Ill only do one if there is still black where air was left in. Ill drill over that area and pop a bulls, then do a fill. Results very. Most of the time it looks better. As for charging I just charge a flat rate, and try to do what I can. You did right by pointing out that it had been repaired. DaveM is right, ask the question did you buy the car new?
Wright Fix

Re: Moral Question about price & service

Post by Wright Fix »

I have a question regarding car washes. I am new to windshield repair, but have noticed that when I find a bad repair job it was usually done at the car wash. I refuse to speak badly of my competition to the customer, but I would like to know what is causing the poor quality repairs.

Is it simply substandard resin or is caused by moisture? What I see is yellow repairs where the resin was not fully injected into the break or did not take. This presents with lots of air pockets and often cracks that are totally void of resin. I also notice that very few have any pit filler at all. Is this typical or just in my area?:eusa_shhh

Thanks,
Heath
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