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I am a former employee of Safelite Autoglass, I was not fired or terminated. I worked for their Sacramento CA and locally here in the DFW area and quit my job there because of their poorly trained techs.

basically I got tired of cleaning up after people who had no business replacing auto glass, I WOULDN'T LET ONE OF THEM FIX MY BYCICLE to put it softly. A brief point I want to make is that I have the credentials to say what I am saying now with 10 years in the glass business management and installing. They manufacture their own glass and it is of very poor quality as an installer I had countless incidents of parts not fitting correctly or breaking during installation. I will keep it short by explaining the training these armatures are working with, they have a turn and burn process and put guys that start with no experience and train them for a 90 day period and throw them out on their own to fix your vehicle, are you comfortable with that?

Note the proper replacement of your windshield could be the difference between life and death, you airbags depend on your windshield to operate and in the event of a head on collision or vehicle roll over you could be killed by an improper replacement.

I have witnessed first hand that the adhesive they use is cheap and fails often, failing by not firmly adhering to the glass, trust me I am not a disgruntled employee by any means. I simply want people to do some research on safety and ask the right questions before choosing the company that will perform this service.

Location: Dallas, Texas

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Guest

by all means im not a disgrunteled {fired} employee, I just butchard too many cars...stick with landscaping you ***

Guest

This isn't true. Safelite has the best of the best training, highest quality adhesives and tools.

Windshieds is not just a piece of glass. I been there since 2004 and we have the best and highest quality products and training.

Guest

hey you are wrong about that they have you with a mentor until they think you are comfortable being out there on your own and if the tech isn't comfortable yet they should say something. Since you had the experience you should have said something to your manager.

Guest

thats why we need union in the auto glass replacement business. they hender their employees from buying glass form their own customers.

Guest
reply icon Replying to comment of Guest-1125316

Union? Thats funny. Union hahaha

Guest

I can assure you this isn't a disgruntled; being a former Safelite employee and Manager as well. I bet you are a current employee or Manager, even corporate trying to deflect from the truths that employees as well as consumers deal with on a daily basis.

Its not about the employee, its not about the consumer, its not even about Auto Glass, its the bottom line with Safelite. They work people beyond their abilities and capabilities, stress and no quality of life. They want you to bleed Safelite, but will cut you loose quicker than anything. Trainees are not adequately "trained" and cut loose too soon nor have the backup or help needed, causing a bad name for the company and very good experienced technicians with the company.

While I totally agree with the "former" employee and I have a good idea who he might be.... I will agree with the fact that they do use a very good quality urethane and primer, of all my years in glass 20+ they are the best materials have used at a company.

Guest

My comprehensive insurance made arrangements for Safelite to replace a broken window against my better judgement. The kid arrived with a piece of glass that looked different from OEM glass in the other doors.

This employee assured me he had experience replacing door glass in Mercedes vehicles. It only took five minutes to determine this glass technician has never removed a door panel on this type of vehicle. The employee got frustrated and damaged the laminate wood by prying on it with a metal tool without removing the fasteners. My door panel is destroyed and replacement parts are no longer in production.

Safelite insists the door was already damaged due to their lack of automotive experience (and responsibility) by their glass technician. There is no question a lack of training and experience exists with a discount chain such as Safelite. Most of these companies hire anyone willing to work who has a clean MVR and background check.

This does not make Safelite employees experts, but just cheap labor to sell their service to penny pinching insurance companies who don't care if your property has substandard repairs or gets damaged by this cheap contractor... The warranty states Safelite is not responsible for any damages except the glass, a completely worthless policy!

Guest

You sound like a disgruntled employee with a bad attitude. I know first hand that the urethane they use does exactly what it is supposed to do and will keep the windshield intact in the car. I bet they are glad you quit, I bet you were bad for moral!

Guest

I work for safelite today . 2014...

They trained me for 5 weeks in a classroom and shop time and had to take several tests.

The I had to work for 3 month, in shop, before I got a van. I am well trained.

Guest
reply icon Replying to comment of Guest-915733

Thank you for your honesty as I am a store manager and take great pride in making sure my technicians know what they are doing and across the board Safelite has lass than a 2% warranty rate. Keep up the great work.

Guest

dude I been doing this for 16 years and work for them don't be salty cause you wanted to go home on a fri early and got an add on suck it up and deal with it buddy go find another glass co. that has what they offer.

Guest

Wow what fun it is to stumble onto this page. A long time ago I cut my teeth at a full service independent glass shop, on the auto glass side.

I spent two years there and moved on to a larger state wide independent auto glass shop for 7 years on the East coast with a one year stint between those six at LOF Auto Glass in Southern California ,when they installed, (yes that's right LOF now Pilkington had glass installation centers ). Then back to the East coast to Install and Manage for Windshields America, Owned by Belron. Belron Windshields America merged W.A. with U.S.

Autoglass and re-branded it to form VISTAR for one year. Then Belron sold us to Safelite and signed a non compete in the U.S. for a few years.

After those few years passing Belron came back to buy Safelite keeping the Safelite name and most of its employees. Safelite fought lawsuits with Triumph Autoglass then Safelite bought them up too.

I lived, worked, and breathed all that through my career. Promises and future promotions with Belron Windshields America vanished with those mergers and acquisitions. And most of us former Windshields America Employees who made it through the first merger left the company when it sold to Safelite. Why?

Because, promotions were gone with the management shuffle, Bonuses gone, Uniforms gone, installer workloads doubled to the point of being laughable that they would expect installers to do 15 windshields in 8 hours not including drive times.

And now we saw how they could take any installer, good or bad, and make him have a bad reputation for comebacks. Yes on a perfect day in a perfect world you would try to be polite,clean every glass, vacuum then clean the urethane from the A pillars or anywhere else before rushing off into traffic hoping no one would call that number on the back of your van as you tried to complete everything in your 8 hour no overtime allowed day.

If you did an absolute near perfect install with no mistakes or faults made by you ,the installer, then two days later you get a call from the customer stating that the rear view mirror snapped off the glass taking a chunck with it and you're just so happy to see that comeback invoice added to your next days workload.

We at W.A. under Belron had the best Autoglass company in the United States.

And Belron should have built upon that solid foundation. Windshields America was the best Autoglass company because we ran it from the ground up NOT from the top down. As Managers on the operations side we had autonomy to run our stores more efficiently because we started as installers and knew the business. Sales and the bean counters listened and took direction from us not the other way around.

This doesn't mean Sales and Ops didn't have it's differences, but with Ops leading the way our budget goals were realistic and our bonus incentives were often achieved. At different times prior to all the mergers and acquisitions Safelite tried to recruit me and others. Those that were recruited usually came back and most refused because industry wide, coast to coast, Safelite had a huge reputation problem. Installer work loads were impossible for a quality installs and windshields produced from their two manufacturing facilities were inferior.

Despite spending millions to upgrade one of these facilities and closing the other which happened while I was there these windshields still came out pitting easier, still had rear view mirrors snapping off with a chunck of glass, and of course distortion and fitment issues. Now with that all being said. Maybe under the new direction of Belron for these many years maybe they have changed their ways. I don't know because I moved on to create my own business doing something completely different.

But from the looks of some of these comments it looks like nothing has changed... too bad because it could be so much better with better guidance.

Guest

I read all of the negative comments made by some of you and I wonder what kind of technician you might have been. Good, bad or average...

I have been with Safelite for almost 12 years now and in that time I have seen many highs and lows in the company. Currently and for about the last 5 years Safelite has never been better. I read comments made by former employees complaining that Safelite "watches" us to much and focuses on "numbers" to much. Why do you think they do this?

I can tell you it's because we focus on the highest quality and customer service in the industry. Much of the verbage in those angry outburst are old industry terms that Safelite quit using years ago. NO company or individual auto glass installer uses more advanced or higher quality installation techniques and products than Safelite does. As far as under trained or low quality installers I'm guessing many of the disgruntled individuals on here are exactly that.

Safelite has the most extensive training program of any autoglass company. Our training is above and beyond any national requirement. I have been in every aspect of this company and I assure anyone reading this that Safelite is by far the best auto glass replacement company in the world.

I currently install for them and I couldn't imagine going anywhere else to do so. By all means shop around but I am supremely confident that Safelite is the best company for all your auto glass needs.

Guest

Thanks for your tip, this thing matters a lot while making choice of windshield i have also experienced bad effects of choosing wrong windshield.

http://safelite-auto-glass.pissedconsumer.com/beware-of-safelite-autoglass-201002****1596.html

Guest

I work for safelite now and they definately have their problems, thats for sure. HOWEVER, the products they use (with exception of Safelite windshields) are all very good quality.

We use Sika which is the preferred glue of most.

NEVER have I heard once of the glue falling off when properly applied. I understand that we have our problems, but if you are going to argue, be realistic and tell the truth GLASSMAN 234 .

Guest
reply icon Replying to comment of Guest-817375

It's a windshield installation company...And you state everything they use is good quality except their brand of windshield??? That's funny!!!

Hey everyone ! My glue is awesome but my windshield sucks!!!

Guest

Yesterday, I had Safelite come out to repair a star. Now, I have an 8-inch crack.

I understand it's glass, and that glass cracks, and that an amount of pressure is required to suck out debris and squirt in resin.

But now I need a new windshield in a brand new car. I should have left it alone.

Guest

I work in hooksett, n.h for the moment, i'v worked at safelite for almost 3 years and let me tell you this place is a joke. its all about numbers, they rate you on everything.

did he call you, did he wash all your windows, did he vacum your call. yeah i understand thats being pro but sometimes customers don't relize you done all the above and answer don't know.

now you your numbers look bad, there goes your bonus. I got $1.63 raise in almost 3 years..what a joke (come monday i quit)

Guest

Glassman and the guy with the cute name, one says sika asap is junk and the other says dow is junk. Their the two best adhesives out.

And Glassboy we're using asap+. I've been around longer than you, worked on the outside and now the inside of safelite. A lot of the stuff you about the company used to be true. But Sika???

I'll admit it was hard to used to coming from DOW, but it's stregth is far superior to DOW. Not that Dow is bad, it exceeds FMVSS but i'm sure i don't have to tell you that. All in all, I get it, you came through that company at it's absolute worst.

You have every right to hate safelite for how they WERE. But don't blanket the current quality techs with your outdated insults.

Guest

Safelite is a joke owned by a foriegn company. The dow they use is garbage as is the glass and moldings.

Their motto is just get the job done while using inferior products. They dont give a *** about their employees or them earnig a decent wage. At Safelite 40 hours does not exist.

So unless you suck your manager off you are *** out of luck. AS I said the company is a total joke.

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