If you are the old-fashioned sort who prefers to call businesses and discuss with them directly what you need, then this guide on auto glass replacement is just for you. After you have found the names of a few auto glass places that might be open when you need them to help you, you should call each of them to get an estimate over the phone. To get a proper estimate without the technicians seeing your vehicle, you have to provide them with the year, make and model of your vehicle, and then you have to provide them with the following information. 

Smashed Side Window

If a car thief pulled a "smash and grab" through a car window, get pictures for your car insurance company first. They may not pay for the window, but they might pay for anything that was stolen out of the vehicle. Then call your auto glass companies and describe to them that you have a smashed side/car door window. The technicians will want to know if the window is completely smashed, or if the window just has a giant spider web pattern. Either way, the window will be replaced completely, but it helps the technician write up the order for repairs before you come into the shop and recognize the vehicle as you pull up. 

Shattered Rear Window

The type of glass used in your rear window tends to break into hundreds of tiny, cube-like bits. In doing so, it doubles as the means for an escape from your vehicle in the event that you find your vehicle nose-down in a body of water and the car is beginning to fill up. (You can smash the rear window and swim through to the surface.) The rest of the time when the rear window is shattered it is more or less an act of vandalism since nothing can really be gained by smashing this window for the purposes of theft. If you find your car with the rear window smashed out, check the rest of the vehicle, take pictures, file a police report, and then tell the glass technicians that you need a new rear window. They will have it ready on your arrival. 

Cracked/Split and Spiderweb-Patterned Front Window

Front windows break differently than any other kind of glass in your vehicle. This glass will stay in place for a very long time, even after the smashed spiderweb patterns have reached all the way across the front of the glass. The technicians need to know if you need a new front windshield because it is a very different sort of glass from the rest. 

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