My name is Ray Albrecht President CEO of Hometown Glass Corporation located in washingtonville ny. A Solara car owner sent me the following letter below, inquiring about a broken windshield on his solara and those broken by many users. I have been in the business of auto glass replacement glass for 25 years. So I think I can answer some of the concerns of you owners. The Glass put into the Solara is made OEM by a company called AP TECH. This is a USA manufactured windshield, and by quality standards, one of the best in the industry.
As year go by, I find that there are many year make and model cars and trucks that are high volume windshield replacement. Some of which included the old ford Taurus, ford Explorer, Toyota Camry, Jeep Liberty, Jeep Wrangler, to name a few. There is a good reason for this and it is not due to the quality of the glass.
In many situations it is due to the aerodynamics of the wind flow going into the car or truck. Some models, example the Chevy Camaro, the wind flow of the car blows over the top of the roof, thus when a rock is bouncing off the road, the car will at times send the rock flying over the roof rather than hitting the windshield. It is amazing that a rock no bigger than 1/8 of an inch large and a car doing 65mph, colliding, will cause a stone bruise on the windshield. That bruise can cause the windshield somewhere down the road, a month, 6 month or never break the outside of the glass.
A windshield is two pieces of glass with a plastic lamination in the middle. It is called safety Laminate. It serves two purposes. One, to redirect any impact, stone, brick, debris from coming into the car, and will keep you alive when you have a front impact hit when the airbags go off, and is used as a cushion for the airbag when deployed. When a small bruise is created, it is a weak spot on the windshield. Any possible expansion (windshield defroster in the winter, and heat of the summer) or contraction (the cold of winter) will cause this bruise to snap. Thus the outer piece of glass brakes.
To get to the point about the Solaria in general, I have found that of all the cars made, USA and Foreign, that it is not a high breakage windshield. I would put this windshield made from 2004-up as an average replacement. I would put in 8 Toyota camry windshields, which I consider high breakage, to 1 Solaria windshield. However, here is my option of this car. I love the convertibles. I own a sebring and would consider the convertibles as my next option. One thing I would suggest on lowering the breakage of this windshield is to put a wind guard in the front grill, thus the rocks will hit the guard saving a windshield. Also, boys, try to keep the speed limit under 85
Hope this answered any of your questions.
If you guys like to contact me, please feel free to go to my website at
www.auto-glass.com
Yours
Ray Albrecht
by zoomzoomthis05 » Tue Feb 27, 2007 8:51 pm 
