At 6 this morning, someone shot out the back window in my 1994 Saturn SL. I am fully insured and didn’t have to pay a dime.
The company that replaced the glass said it cost $2,510.98. This sounds high to me and others have said the same thing. I tried to find it online, but all I can find is places that will call me with a quote.
Does anyone know if the price was too high? Did this company rip-off my insurance carrier?
“Replacing back glass on Saturn”
I think that´s the kind of problems HAL9000 was meant to solve 
$ 2,500. !!
Price sounds totally nuts. Unless we’re talking some high tech window on a luxury car, front or rear glass replacement (even with embedded heating element) is usually in the mid hundreds at worst. Plus Saturn replacement stuff is usually fairly inexpensive. See here
I work at an autoglass warehouse as a wholesale distributor, and I can vouch that (contrary to what astro implied) Saturn glass is expensive. (Note that there’s no glass on that site he linked to.) However, $2500 does seem to be a bit over the top; the windshield, for an OEM replacement - just for the glass, mind you, not to actually have it installed - would run between $450 and $500 if you could get ahold of one at wholesale prices.
The price the company quoted may have been the NAGS (National Auto Glass Specifications) list price for the back glass - highly inflated figures that no one ever pays.
(from http://nagcupdate.com/1201usaa.htm - bolding mine)
I can get more specific figures when I go back to work on Friday, but suffice it to say that if they were trying to charge $2500, it was definitely a rip-off.
Yeah! This thread title had me wondering what a back glass was, and who needed to know how to replace on in the vicinity of Saturn.
Good Lord. A few months ago I paid about $250 to replace the windshield on my '97 SL2. That’s for the glass AND the installation. I can imagine that the back window, what with the defroster and all, would be more expensive – but TEN TIMES as expensive???
Somebody shot out the back window of your car, and you’re worried about the cost?? :eek:
The good news it that the insurance company probably knows this already (but I’m glad this thread brought it to my attention). If a glass replacer tried to bill them $2.5K, they’d probably balk.
I’d be certain of this, in my state (Massachusetts), which, like many states, has mandatory insurance and ‘no deductible, no questions asked’ glass replacement. Institute a policy like that, andcon artists who smell a blank check will start cruising in mobile vans for people with tiny nicks and scratches, unless there is a fixed fee schedule.
Seriously, if you could collect a $2000/car for hanging out by a rush hour traffic light, spotting drivers with cracked windshields, and offering to follow them to work and replace it at no charge to them… well, c’mon, who really needs to make more than half a million per year at one car/day if it leaves the rest of your day free? I’d end up practicing medicine only as a hobby. (It really is the most fun than you can have with your pants on ) Heck, I’d expect people to start hiring kids with slingshots.
Replacing anything will be difficult on Saturn due to the high gravity and the lack of a solid surface to stand on. Sorry, I tried to resist. I really did.
Seriously though. Do you have enemies or do you think this was just a random “let’s get drunk and shoot some shit” type thing.
It happened at 6:18 in the morning, and 8 other cars in the neighborhood got hit. It’s a really nice neighborhood so it was a little surprising.
The guy that lives in the apartment next to my house had his driver-side window shot out and his replacement cost $333.56.
I live in a state (South Carolina) that has no deductible, no questions asked glass replacement.
We were lucky that my wife’s car didn’t get hit. Her car is registered in N.C. and that state doesn’t have the “free glass” policy. So we would have had to pay to get it replaced.
I really don’t care how much it cost, I was just curious
Just to confirm - the NAGS list price on a '94 Saturn SL back glass is just a touch over $2500. So that’s where they got the figure they gave you.
It’s a good joke, but HAL was sent to investigate Jupiter, not Saturn.
Admittedly, I also though the OP was asking a NASA-related question.