As someone that worked at Safelite I can shed a bit of light on this.
@JohnVee call safelite to come out or drop it by my old work to see if they can fill the crack before it expands. The can tell you on the spot if they can do it, BUT it is not on them if it does crack during the fix. They are injecting a resin at very high pressure to get in every part of that crack and it is possible it can cause it to crack more but at that point it would have cracked more anyway down the line. They can then set up a replacement for you.
Most insurances will pay the repair for you with no cost to you so its worth a try.
@BMThiker never heard that before maybe for other companies type of resin, but with how much it rained in Charlotte i'm sure I would have wondered why all our repair techs were sitting around doing nothing for weeks at a time.
@OB-1 the OEM replacement is entirely up to your agent, how much pressure and a clout you can use on them. They aren't cheap at all so don't be surprised if they decline it. In that case they will cover the cost of the PPG or whatever WS they have in stock at the local safelite and you can always opt to cover the difference to an OEM piece. As far as correct installation here is the run down on that. The 80 series has a gasket WS instead of a molding set. This isn't used by any vehicle anymore so it isn't something that happens every day at even a company as big as safelite. It isn't that the 80 is special its that most domesting trucks stopped using gaskets in the 80's so it isn't common. A modern WS is epoxied to the WS frame and then the moldings, that are purely cosmetic, are put on top. A gasket WS has to be epoxied both sides to the glass as well as being "popped" into place which creates pressure. (lots of times the glass can crack purely from this)
Now if you get them to do OEM you should be golden. No company is going to risk an inexperienced tech doing the install and breaking an expensive piece of glass because if they break it on the install they need to cover the cost of the new replacement OEM. (i'm not saying that you may not get someone that only glues one side of the glass to the gasket, that can happen but I can make sure you get a good tech and you can also show them the FSM papers at the same time) If you don't get OEM you can still stress to the call taker that you know it is hard to do. I'd also suggest taking it into the shop instead of having them come to you. Most of the time the shop is full of very seasoned guys, and trainees, that don't want to do the few hundred mile drive every day doing glass. They also make bank in the shop also. Since you are near to Charlotte i'd say call your agent figure out the OEM stuff first, if you ultimately have to go with a non oem glass it isn't the end of the world. The inside of my cruiser is bone dry, despite sitting in charleston through quite a few hurricanes and the swamp thing that was growing on the body and all the seals, and the PPG has been in there and offroaded with it in there since 2013.
At the same time i'll reach out to my old boss and see what good experienced techs are still working at the shop down there so you can request one of them directly.
Sucks.
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