One of the aspects of the American dream is that, in many cases, you can strive to be anything that you want to be. No doubt that a potential vocation may be derailed simply through intellectual or economic disqualification, but generally there is no legal or social barriers that exist to bar anyone from being something they want to be. There is no easier place to see proof of that concept take hold than it is to park outside a auto glass wholesaler and watch commerce take place.
One of the most obvious weaknesses of our trade is the easy entry nature that exists from within. It is a very regretful fact that anyone, and I mean anyone, can call himself a professional auto glass installer. The cultural axiom that a windshield leaks oftentimes after replacement has become such because there are far too many incompetent or amateurish people who profess to be auto glass technicians. Until that glaring and gaping loophole is closed, there is truly little that can be done to raise the public’s trust in our profession.
Independents need to realize that corporate glass uses their brief internal training as an additional sales point when they sign up an insurer or fleet as a client. Not only may they offer nationwide service, a company can point to their in-house instruction program and sell that as proof of technical competency. When compared to the great unwashed masses that exist elsewhere, it becomes a useful argument to close the sale or to maintain an account.
Look at the TV ads that have graced our channels. We see a neat and polite technician driving a logoed company vehicle. It is certainly not the confidence-draining 25-year-old mini pick-up that looked like it was the loser at a Destruction Derby that I see picking up glass at my neighborhood distributor every day. The fact should not be lost on any knowledgeable person that both could have shared the same employer or even the same trainer at any given time.
That amateurish image is something that needs to change, but we have far too many institutions that promote (and, in fact, encourage) cheap installs. Body shops, car dealerships and fleet managers regularly choose glass companies based on pricing rather than competency. Craigslist and other Internet sources allow all sorts of glass services to flourish since the general public has little idea what constitutes a good installation. We don’t even have to mention the bean counting, third-party-administrator-hiring insurers who view glass claims as an assault on their companies’ bottom lines.
The question I would love to have an answer for is this: Did the Chinese flood of cheap glass start the decline of profitability and craftsmanship in the auto glass industry, or did it just add momentum to it? The second question is this: Can we as an industry recover respect as a craft? As it stands, that goal makes putting a genie back into a bottle sound like an easy task.
First of all, just giving lip service to bad installations has to stop. Accountability has to begin somehow, whether by VIN data bases like Carfax or by some recognized and easily accessible method. Corrosion is not a natural byproduct of an installation and a customer should not have to bear the expense of that condition. Tracing an inferior replacement back and making that shop and/or person who performed that shop legally and economically responsible might go a long way in curbing some of the worst abuses. That would mean every glass would have to carry an additional numerical code to make installer identification possible to trace.The cost for such a system should not add more than a dollar to the wholesale price of a lite—a small price to pay either to assess or avoid liability issues for shop owners.
I would love to see some tough state certifiable standards for auto glass technicians written and then enforced. InCalifornia, someone who cuts or colors hair needs to prove proficiency while anyone who ponies up $200 can buy a legally required Bureau of Automotive Repair license without proving any technical ability. It seems a pretty sad of affairs when a head of hair can grow back after a bad cut but no hair would be able to grow if a windshield client did not survive a vehicle ejection if the glass adhesion failed during an accident
How much responsibility goes to a company or to the technician for an installation? If a tech is not given enough time or quality parts to do a job properly, can blame be levied on him justly? If one has a lazy or greedy installer who cuts corners on mobiles, why does an owner bear the larger liability? These are difficult questions to answer just due to the large variability that exists. Large companies tend to think in metrics using numbers alone to assess productivity and production. Smaller businesses only tend to think in terms of a day’s or week’s gross profit. In both cases, if the intent is to squeeze out the greatest amount of profit over the interest of the customer, bad outcomes will occur.
Earlier this month, I walked out into a parking lot and spotted a woman inside an Acura TL (FW2106). The top three sides of the glass had copious amounts of blue tape attached. I mentioned to her that I was in the auto glass business and asked her what she paid for her new windshield. She proudly announced that it cost her very, very little, as if she had won the lottery or had found the deal of the century. My reply was that she better keep the name of the company handy just in case she had any issues. No doubt that the moulding had been “filleted” to save both parties money and I can only wonder what other atrocities were committed. Was a SDAT even observed? In my area, there are a few low-price shops attached to wrecking yards that customers routinely drive away immediately after installation (with blue tape attached). Last week, I replaced a FW0660 that had broken, not due to a stone break or an outside force. It had shattered because it was so loose due to adhesion failure, and it had hit the interior wall next to the pinchweld.
Sadly, there is little the industry as a whole can do to tighten standards, even if it truly had the will to do so, which it seems not to have at the moment. The AGRSS® Standard certainly is a start but until the American public actually cares enough to educate themselves on the aspects of what constitutes a good installation or stop assuming that proficiency exists anywhere a glass shingle hangs, little can be accomplished to improve overall quality of service. If we fail as an industry to restore confidence in the nature of our very existence, what will that mean for our future?
