@JohnEnglish - Good question. You may need a camera working 24/7 with good resolution to capture a developing crack.
"Will it support further investigation" ? Maybe, if JLR would be willing to look into it.
Knowing JLR, they would not look into this in any way, shape or form.
They want this to go away, and would not touch it with a 10 ft. pole. It is a safety issue ( NHTSA involvement ), and they would have to do a major recall.
I can bet my paycheck that this, it is never going to happen ( unless a honest politician would like to get involved )

 

I’ve seen the comments and well, yesterday was our day to have windshield damage.

A small stone created a star chip, we expected it to spider but it has not..yet. Of course it’s directly in the drivers line of site.

We called our local windshield repair place used in years past, they they have a backlog of 20+ land rovers with heated windshields to be replaced. Also told that Land Rover Hanover MA just had their parts manager and coordinator throw their keys at the GM and quit? They have no idea when they will get parts which are required to come from LR.

 

Question to JLR, the defender will go nowhere without a secured windshield!

 

I just had mine replaced, not from random cracking, but rather a largish rock hit driving it home the day of delivery (Universe needed a laugh). Had no problem getting the windshield, solar, heated with all the spots for all the tech to peek through. They had one in stock in Phoenix and did it in a couple of days, since all the cameras need to be re-calibrated. No charge to me, as we can get $10 a year glass coverage in Arizona, no deductible. USAA had to pay $2,136 for all the fun of windshield and calibration. $10 seems a decent price to pay annually. Living in snow country, windshields tend to get wasted about every other year from the snowplows kicking up all kinds of debris. The Range Rover went through 3. Even the 97 Defender went through one, and I tended to avoid driving it in the cold snowy weather. Now one of my buds in Phoenix has given up on replacing the windshields on his older Ford Ranger truck, since the heat seems to waste it and it cracks within a year from the heat stress. So since it is his utility trash hauler, he just lives with it.

 

Two questions for you Dogpilot, do you have the heads up display? and does your replacement have the visible coating where you can see the cutouts/spots for the tech to peek through up on each side of the rear view mirror?

 

Yes, it has the cutouts and HUD. I recall three cutouts. It is the Defender 90X with pretty much everything on it.

 

Dogpilot, thanks for the reply, can you confirm if you have the Solar Attenuating windshield option. You don't have the cutouts I was looking for though. You can see one of the "cutouts" in post #17 of the thread at this LINK. Interesting that you have the HUD option and your windshield has the HUD stamp, thanks for the updated pics.

 

Yes it was speed with the solar attenuating windscreen. Kind of important up here at altitude for UV and your eyes

 

It's like these windshields are made of butter. I encountered high winds with some blowing sand while on a drive last weekend and now my windshield with just 1,500 miles is pitted like the hood of a 30-year old Honda. It's hard to pick it up in a pic, but you can sort of see the hundreds of tiny dots in this video. I love my truck and am thankful I have yet to experience a crack, but damn.

Ps- For reference, I do not have the solar attenuating glass, but do have the aforementioned cutouts as you can see in the attached video.

 

I'd encourage anyone having a problem with their windscreen to report it to the retailer and make a claim under warranty if the crack is not the result of an impact. We need to know if there are unusually high rates of failure with components. Sufficient complaints trigger processes.

A look at the most recent claim numbers suggest that the windscreen failures are in line with normal averages.

That said, if there is indeed an issue I'm actually more inclined to suspect an installation issue than a glass quality issue. Our sources and standards for glass are in line with BMW and Mercedes.

I'd be curious to know how many of the posted failures on this forum involve the heated vs non-heated windscreens.