Broken Car Window, Repaired at Aaron Auto Glass
I took a day off yesterday, figuring I needed some downtime at home after a weekend away in Atlanta. I had plans to make a grocery store run in the early afternoon, and a little after 12:00 I went out back to my car.
Here’s my car where I left it on Friday.
Aaaaand here’s what I saw, when I walked over to the other side.
Not good at all.
I called 311 to make a report, but held off on actually going in to the car (I’ve watched too many cop shows, and didn’t want to “disturb the evidence.”) After about 15+ minutes on hold, the cop I spoke with told me to check to see if anything was stolen, and to call back. We chatted briefly, and I basically learned that no one was going to come out and dust for prints.
So… after looking around inside, I saw that nothing was taken. There was this keychain thing in the glove compartment, and the box it was in looked a lot like a nice jewelry box. This was still in the glove compartment. CD’s were still in the armrest, as was a smattering of loose change. From what I could tell, the only thing damaged was the driver’s side front window – which was pretty much 100% shattered.
I spoke with a few construction guys that were working in the building not 20 feet away. No one there saw anything, and only one guy I spoke with noticed the broken window earlier. I flagged down a girl walking her dogs nearby, and she seemed to remember seeing the damage sometime Monday, around 4-5PM.
About 10 minutes later, I happened to see a neighbor, Therese, who told me she reported the damage to the police on Saturday, around 3:45 PM. Thanks to her, I was able to at least pinpoint a better time for when the damage occurred.
After calling the police and filing an official report, I talked to my insurance (Geico). The damage didn’t meet our deductible, so we were on our own to get it repaired. They recommended Safelite, and quoted me a price of $177.06 (this is also with about a $40 discount, via Geico).
I ended up calling around, and found a place nearby called Aaron Auto Glass. The girl I spoke with was named Michelle, and she was really helpful in terms of providing a quote. I was surprised to hear that it was only going to be $90.70 (labor included), and they’d be able to fix it the same day.
After Liz Rench dropped off Baxter and Quincy, I thew a blanket over the glass on the seat, hopped in and slowly made my way over.
I have to say – I had an excellent experience getting my window reparied at Aaron Auto Glass. I was able to get in around 3:45PM, and they were pretty darn quick (I was out of there by 4:50 PM). Replacement window plus vacuuming up all the glass, plus labor was $90.70 – nearly $100 cheaper than the first place I contacted.
On top of that, they called me in at the start of the repair to look at a small covering/piece that had been missing from the door handled. This was something I knew about, but the guy doing the work said that he needed to point out anything amiss prior to them starting – I was pretty impressed at this attention to detail.
The place was a little hectic when I was there, but everyone moved quickly and efficiently. Given how often they have to repeat things to customers, the employees definitely kept things moving without losing patience. As I was checking out, one of the girls I spoke with told me that it was usually pretty slow during the day, and around 3PM things tend to get a little crazy.
If you ever need any kind of car window repair done, definitely give these guys a call. Consider this an official endorsement.
So… not the best way to spend most of my day off, but I guess this is part of living in the big city. At least I got to spend some time outside, and at least I was able to get everything attended to and fixed, all in one day.
I was looking over older blog posts, and realized I’ve got a small timeline of vehicular theft and damage over the years. Here’s a little tour of the things that have happened to my/our vehicles:
September, 2002: Someone barfs on my car door.
October, 2003: Apartment broken into.
July, 2004: Windshield wipers stolen.
July, 2005: Car window broken, radio stolen.
Summer, 2005: Liz’s scooter is stolen (but then later recovered).
September, 2005: Someone tries to write “Ho’s” on my car, but ends up writing “Hoe’s”.
July, 2006: Liz’s Car is stolen.
July, 2006: Liz’s car is recovered in an alley.
July, 2010: Liz’s scooter is stolen… again
August, 2012: Car window broken.
Oh, Chicago. You so crazy.
When I lived in Chicago, my Subaru got stolen. It was taken from the lot where I was having a new alternator installed. Someone had to have moved 2 other cars to get to mine. Suspicious, yes? The detective agreed and said they’d investigate the shop and call me back.
When I didn’t get a call after several days, I called them. I got a different detective, and when I asked how the investigation was going, she laughed. That’s right, laughed. She said, say they go to the shop and ask them what they saw, what do you think they’d say? I said, that they don’t know anything. Right, the detective said. And that’s where the investigation stops.
Sounded like pretty wimpy detective work to me, but there was clearly no budging her. So we turned the title over to the insurance company, gave it up as a lost cause.
Two days later, I got a notice in the mail from the Chicago impound lot. My car had been towed from where it had been parked illegally just south of downtown, the day after I had reported it stolen. It had been in the impound lot for 10 days. The detectives apparently never knew it was there. In their possession.
Just for fun, even though I was no longer the owner of the car, I called the impound lot to see if I could do anything. They told me, “Yeah, your car is here, but you wouldn’t want to see it. It was stripped.” Meaning the thieves stripped anything and everything of any value from it and left it for dead. Me poor Subaru.
That’s not the sum total of my experiences with cars and theft and the Chicago police department. But it is the pinnacle.
juliet (August 4, 2012 at 1:32 am)