Windshield OEM Subaru or Pilkington

That sounds reasonable. I just had the windshield on my wife’s 2021 Santa Fe Calligraphy replaced (because it failed NH state inspection due to a rock chip in the driver’s line of sight ????). Thompson Auto Glass, the company who handled the replacement and calibration, said the glass itself was $685 and then $250 charge for the calibration. The windshield was made by Pilkington, which is a premium auto glass manufacturer (the OEM replacement windshield on my 2001 BMW M5 is a Pilkington brand).

We have a 22 OBW and are on our FOURTH windshield. The first ones we replaced with OEM. This last one we replaced with a Pilkington brand. Pilkington is still going strong and has lasted almost twice as long as the others combined.

Pilkington, the brand that makes Honda oem glass, was around $570 installed. It’s noticeably thicker than the oem R glass, which may be heavier and affect track time? But the quality is good. No distortion either.

Last glass we replaced with a Pilkington. It’s lasted twice as long (so far) as all the other windshields combined. It’s had a couple of similar ‘minor’ stone chips as what did in the OEMs. It’s still going strong.

Some Outback owners are already on their 3rd or 4th windshield in 2 years. So far the only solution is to demand a non OEM third party window replacement. Owners who can convince the insurance to use Pilkington glass for a replacement are having far less issues.

I got a crack in my windshield the first weekend of driving my Outback in 2017. A huge rock was kicked up on the interstate, I think most cars would’ve had the same result as my car.

As for weak glass on Subarus? Probably not exactly what you think. IIRC, Subaru has started designing their frames to include the windshield as a structural component. This allows them to have smaller A-Pilars, which have grown to be massive these days. The downside of this is that a rock strike that you would normally brush can grow as the new weak point is challenged by the frame. What causes our windshield replacement was a hit that caused a quarter-sized crack, at the start of a 10 hour road trip. I watched that crack grow to 18 inches over that trip. While thermal expansion and frost could do that on older cars, I’ve never seen a crack grow quite like that.

I’m about to replace my 5th windshield on my 2022 Outback. Subaru doesn’t acknowledge anything out of the ordinary. I’ve contacted them multiple times. No impact at all. I park in garage and next day it’s cracked. Totally normal to Subaru.

So I used a company besides safelite to replace my windshield because they stressed that they only use OEM glass, but after they replaced it, its stamped Pilkington instead of Mazda, and while the glass says its HUD rated I felt like my eyes were straining to look at it.

OEM glass is dog shit. I'm on windshield number 5 in 3 years this one has lasted the longest at 7 months.