A rock came from nowhere while I was driving on the interstate this morning and smacked my windshield. Honestly, it was a small rock but there were no vehicles within a good 200 yds in front of me. Perhaps it was a meteorite??

I have an appointment scheduled to have it replaced tomorrow afternoon. I was looking at the windshield and it looks like it can't be taken off without remove those black panels on either side of it. But how do those come off??
I was thinking I would take some extra care and remove those prior to the mobile repair arriving. A friend of mine at work went through a big hassle with a safelite guy damaging his car while repairing so I'm being cautious.

Anyone know how to remove those? Should I just not worry about it? The factory windshield looks so neat and clean on there... I really hope it stays that way.

 

You can remove them by pulling down the door window seals then there are phillips screws holding them on. But I would let the glass guy break them, warn him first to be careful. Then hopefully they'll pay for them if they break them.

 

haha... thanks for the information... but I'd like to avoid the hassle! lol

They have done a Saturn of mine in the past and he took off the grill on it and that was like 1/2 dozen torx bits. I didn't like how aggressive he was being with cutting the old windshield out on that one. I definitely don't want that on my MINI. :|

 

I took a good look at it and found the screws. I'll inform him of the process tomorrow. It's getting way to chilly out to do it now. Also it looks like he'll have to remove the screws in order to take off the seal at the bottom.

 

LOL that was good, i like how you suggested the possiblitly and then just kept at your point.. i actually laughed out loud in my office, thanks!

 

Glad I could bring some humor into your evening.


So as a follow up... when the safelite guy called I asked if he had ever done a MINI and he said "Oh yeah" with confidence. That made me feel a lot better.
I was out there the whole time. Took about 90 minutes! He was really nice.

Dunno about putting the tools and such on my suede seats though.
Everything is fine though. I did get the stupid sirius satellite antenna off of my roof and there is a rust mark! :(