Warping on the rear glass

[Shahman]

I'm posting this here again. I think I tried this a few years ago, but I don't think I got any responses. I thought I'd check again to see if any of you have had the same experience. Sorry in advance for the long post.

I took delivery of my car in December of 2022 for a 2023 model year Air Touring. The car had sat in Chicago, and I had different VIN numbers assigned to me due to various delays of shipping. This wasn't originally my car, but it became my car once my car didn't arrive in Chicago in time for me to pick it up before the tax rebates under Biden expired.

I had a punch list of issues with the car. There were dings and dents and things that didn't work right. I was assigned to a mobile repair guy based out of Nashville because I live in Louisville, Kentucky.

I made a list of all the issues, and one of the issues on the list was the rear glass warping. When you're driving, on certain parts of the glass, it was warping the view from the outside. It wasn't a great thing, but it was something I could live with. I asked the mobile repair guy about it, and he said it was perfectly normal. I put it on my list, and at some point I mentioned it in passing to the service center because eventually that mobile repair guy got fired. They moved me from dealing with Nashville to dealing with Coldwater, Michigan.

Coldwater, Michigan, has been great, but there were a host of other issues that were more important. Particularly, I had dings in the car, and I had charging issues where it would not fast charge when it was first delivered. They left me stranded in Indianapolis because it would only slow charge. It would only level 2 charge.

I finally brought it up with them right before the warranty ended, and they agreed because I was able to finally document it, which was really hard to do. It only shows up at a distance when you're looking at objects that are far away. It's much harder to document it when you're looking at things close by. I finally figured out a scenario where I could actually document it with items in a big parking lot that would show the issue.

Long story short, I sent them what happened, and they went ahead and fixed it. Except when the car came back, the windshield is now warped in different places. I had warping predominantly at the very top of the windshield and on the sides. That was particularly bad because you generally see through the top more often than you see through the bottom. The fixed version now warps at the bottom and has some warping on the corners.

Now, if it just warped on the corners, I would be okay because that's where the glass folds. The big thing is I've sat in Lucid's showroom, and it's pretty clear that the glass is not warping on the Airs there. The last go-around, after they fixed it, I contacted them and said, "Hey, this is not fixed. The glass is still warping on the bottom." They basically came back and said, "Well, some warping is normal."

I just wanted to ask you guys, sorry for the lengthy thread: are you guys seeing warping out your rear view, out your rear glass? If so, what type of warping are you seeing, and have you tried to get it addressed with the car care centers? What has the response been? Thanks for your responses.

 

[socktucker]

I was told by Lucid service that they have been getting a lot of defective glass from their suppliers. In fact in my last go round they ordered several of the same glass roof and picked “the good one”. Then it warped and we put on a 3rd one. So the glass is a known problem. As for where and how it’s warped, I don’t know what they consider “acceptable”. On my 26 Air it’s warped like a strip about 1/3 from the top, and I’m okay with that. If it made it hard to use, I wouldn’t be.

 

[knewman]

Mine has some warping around the periphery. Most cars I've owned with more severe angles on the glass like the Air exhibit the same. Can't say I've ever brought it up with service, I didn't really think it was a problem. Maybe if it was across the entire pane like a funhouse mirror I'd be concerned but that's not the case.

 

[Shahman]

I was told by Lucid service that they have been getting a lot of defective glass from their suppliers. In fact in my last go round they ordered several of the same glass roof and picked “the good one”. Then it warped and we put on a 3rd one. So the glass is a known problem. As for where and how it’s warped, I don’t know what they consider “acceptable”. On my 26 Air it’s warped like a strip about 1/3 from the top, and I’m okay with that. If it made it hard to use, I wouldn’t be.

Mine was originally warped across the top, and I found that really tough when I was on the highways in particular because it would stretch out the vehicles in the distance having it shifted to the bottom after this last update seems to have made it much more manageable, but I will say when I went to the showroom and sat in one of their vehicles it’s clear they can get the glass right because the air that was in the showroom had no such defects

 

[Shahman]

Mine has some warping around the periphery. Most cars I've owned with more severe angles on the glass like the Air exhibit the same. Can't say I've ever brought it up with service, I didn't really think it was a problem. Maybe if it was across the entire pane like a funhouse mirror I'd be concerned but that's not the case.

I think the last car I owned with glass that angled and folded was a 1987 Honda Accord, where the rear glass similarly curved around the corner of the car and surprisingly they did a pretty good job with it, but it was warped in the corners. That being said that was almost 40 years ago, so I would’ve thought that they could get it right by now.

 

[hamburglar]

I also took delivery of my Lucid Air Touring on December 31, 2022 in Chicago for a 2023 model year. Among the issues on my punch list of things to be repaired after I took delivery of my vehicle was the rear glass warping. The view of the road and certain objects when viewed through my rear view mirror were clearly distorted and even the service technician who picked up my vehicle to bring back to Goose Island for repairs noticed the wavy images in the rear glass. However, when I received my car back after correcting the other fit and finish issues and panel alignment issues, I was similarly advised that the warping in the rear view window was "normal" and nothing to be done and just checked it off to that.

It wasn't until a few months or a year later that the car was brought back to Goose Island for repairs because the rear defroster for the window wasn't working properly since the rear window stayed frosted for the most part no matter how high I had the temperature in the car and the window wouldn't really defrost if the car had been sitting outside for a certain amount of time. No matter how high I put defrost temperature or interior temperature in the car, the rear defroster really didn't defrost anything.

I didn't really notice that the defroster wasn't working properly since my vehicles are garage kept and temperature controlled so I did not discover that the rear defroster didn't work until I had driven the car to work or to the train station and it had been sitting out in the cold for some time. It was only after Lucid replaced my rear glass window due to these issues with a new rear window and a working rear defroster that the warping went away.

The roads and objects in the rear view mirror seem normal and undistorted now instead of wavy. Or if there are any distortions to the rear window, they aren't so noticeable anymore. I had never experienced these kinds of rear window distortions in my Lexus or Jaguar cars previously, so "No", I don't think that this is normal. I guess I was just lucky that the last rear window repair or replacement seems to have resolved the problem. Hope this helps.