$200 to $500 replaces a door window or a back glass, and a straightforward one is done inside a couple of hours once the pane is here. Back glass on a hatchback or an SUV is the version worth ringing about early, because the pane carries the defroster grid, often the wiper spindle and sometimes the aerial, and getting the right variant is what decides whether it is today or tomorrow.
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The rear screen on a hatchback or estate is the busiest piece of glass on the car. It has the heated grid printed across it, two soldered tabs at the edges for the wiring, a hole and a bearing seat for the wiper spindle, usually the third brake light somewhere near the top, and on many models the radio aerial printed into the same surface. When it goes, all of that goes with it. That is why we do not quote from a photograph. The exact pane comes from the year, make, model and trim, and on some vehicles the build month, because suppliers change part way through a production run and the connector moves half an inch.
Fitting is the shorter half of the job. Rear glass on a tailgate is bonded rather than clamped, so the old bead is cut out, the aperture cleaned back and primed, and the new pane set with fresh urethane, which means it gets the same cure consideration as a windshield. Then there is the clean-up, and on a hatchback that is not a token effort. Tempered glass collapses into thousands of cubes and a tailgate funnels them straight into the boot well, the spare wheel recess, the seat backs and the rear quarter trim. Left in place they work loose over speed humps and reappear on the parcel shelf for years. The car gets emptied out properly, wiper reconnected, grid tested, before it goes anywhere.
“Excellent job and great professional service. Dropped my car off 8am and it was done within two hours. Pricing for my window replacement was the most reasonable in the city of Philadelphia. Highly recommend.”
More on this service: Side & Rear Window Replacement at James E Linus Sons Inc →
The give-away that a car has been parked in Brewerytown overnight is where the glass ends up. These blocks have back alleys and, on the newer builds, rear parking pads off them, and a vehicle standing on a pad behind the house is out of sight from the street in a way a car on 27th is not. That is where most of the rear-glass calls come from. Practically, it means two things. The car is often reachable only from behind the house, which the van can usually manage if the alley is clear, and it has frequently been standing open to the weather all night, so the interior needs drying as well as vacuuming. Mention both when you ring and we will bring what is needed rather than discovering it on the pad.
Same service, same price, other North Philadelphia neighborhoods:
The wiper arm and motor stay with the car; what breaks with the glass is the spindle seal and, sometimes, the bearing collar that sits in the pane. The new glass is ordered with the correct spindle aperture for your model, the arm is refitted and the seal renewed so it does not weep down the inside of the tailgate. We run the wiper and the heated grid before you take the car back, because a rear screen that wipes but does not clear is only half a repair.
Around ninety minutes for a normal drop glass, once the pane is in the building. Most of that is not the glass. The interior trim panel has to come off, the door cavity has to be emptied of the cubes that fell into it, the felt run channels get checked, and the regulator is worked by hand to be sure nothing was bent. Then the pane is clamped, aligned and run up and down a few times before the panel goes back on. Rushing that is how a window comes back rattling.
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