Safelite AutoGlass review: Windshield replacement

My name is Yerby Billingslea. I have a 2019 Audi A5 that I lease out to others by way of Turo. In other words, it is an important source of monthly income. On Jan. 16, 2024, while out on lease, a client had an incident that resulted in the windshield being damaged. I immediately contacted the people at Turo to file an incident report and was instructed by them to find a reputable auto glass repair shop, get a quote, and they would handle it from there. I chose Safelite in Macon, Ga. on Jan. 16th. They scheduled an appointment for Jan. 24th, 8 days later.

I arrived on the 24th a little before my scheduled service time of 8 am. When I told the lady at the counter who I was and why I was there, I was informed that my glass had not yet come in. She said that the problem was with the warehouse and that they were at their mercy. My problem with that is that no one took the time to call and inform me in advance that the glass had not come in. It was too late to cancel the Uber a called to meet me there to take me to work.

After not hearing back from anyone for an entire week, I took it upon myself to reach out to them to check on the part. Once again, I was told that the part had still not come in. No updates on an ETA was made available.

Finally, on Feb. 9th, an appointment for my replacement window was set for Feb. 14th (20 days after the initial scheduled service). Service was completed on Feb. 14th. On Feb. 15th my wife drove the car to work. When she got off work and got into the car, she discovered that the mirror had fallen off onto the center console. She actually had to drive the car home like that. Her commute is 30 miles one-way. She felt completely unsafe on the drive home; and for very good reason. That was very dangerous for her to do. I called the shop first thing the very next morning (Feb. 16th) to inform them what had happened. I drove the car to work because they were going to send a tech to my job to reattach the mirror to the windshield. However, he was unable to reattach the mirror because he said the glass was defective. He apologized and said he would tell someone what was going on and that someone would contact me that day to schedule a new in-house service appointment. That call never came.

For the next several days I could not find the keys to my BMW. I looked everywhere I could think of, but they were nowhere to be found. Initially, I didn't think that what was going on with my Audi, had anything to do with my BMW keys. I'll come back to that later.

I finally picked up the phone several days later and called them to get an update on what was going on. The person who answered my call apologized for not having reached out to me, but that everything had been crazy around there because they had a new manager. She set my next scheduled service for Feb. 28th at 8 am.

Back to my missing car keys. So, because I couldn't find my car keys, I had no other options but to drive the Audi back and forth to work with no rearview mirror. After racking my brain for over a week about my missing key, I decided to call the Safelite shop to see if by chance someone had seen a BMW key. The person on the phone said that a BMW key had been hanging up inside the front area for about a week. Someone there had, for whatever reason, removed my keys from my car and hung them inside. All I could do was shake my head in disbelief. I had to go by there and retrieve my keys.

Finally the 28th came. I took my car back to the shop and left it. They told me that it would be ready in about 3 hours. By the way, this would be my third Uber from there to work. I went back at 1 pm (5 hrs later) to pick up my car, but for some reason it was still in the shop. Finally the tech came in and told me that they were having a hard time getting everything to calibrate and that they were on the phone with someone trying to get it done. I couldn't wait for it so I left and went back to work. The tech called me later and informed me that they had finally gotten it calibrated, but as they was putting the mirror back in place, the housing broke again. I went back by there after work to pick up the car again. This is when I met the manager for the first time. I told him who I was, he pulled my work order, looked at it and handed me my keys. He didn't even know what had happened. When he finally figured out that there was a problem and what the problem was, he apologized and dismissed me. I had to ask him if he was going to set me up for a new service, because he seemed to not understand that I need one. The 28th was on Wednesday of last week. He set my appointment for the following Monday, March 4th. I stood there and asked him directly, if the glass would be there so soon. His response to me was, "I would not be setting the appointment if the glass was not going to be here."

I went back on the 4th at 8 am, gave my keys to the lady inside and walked out to get in the truck with my wife so that she could drop me off at work. Suddenly, the tech came running out to stop us before we pulled off to tell us that it was way too early to pull the glass back off the vehicle. He insisted that we wait another week or two to come back in to have the work done. He stated that he didn't want to run the risk of the glue getting on the interior of the car. My wife hit the ceiling! I had to calm her down because this entire ordeal is insanely ridiculous. The tech told me that someone would call me shortly with a new appointment.

And here I sit, typing this complaint and my car glass is still not repaired; and true to form, I have not heard from anyone about scheduling yet another service. And by the way, I called the Pissed Consumer Team to lodge my complaint. I was told that a District Manager would give me a call within 24 hrs. That was on Feb 27th and I still have not heard from him either.

I cannot begin to express our frustrations with Safelite. This has been the most infuriating and inept service experience that I have ever had. We have potentially lost well over a thousand dollars as a result of this stream of much needed income shut off because your company can't do the very thing that they are supposedly experts at doing. To add to the frustrations, it is not like we can go anywhere else to get the job done, because you have already been paid. We are the only ones not whole in this situation. It will soon be 2 months, and we are no closer to getting our windshield repaired than we were when we first made contact with Safelite.