CC Wordless Outtake: Toyota Sienna – Red, White and Blue (Tarp) Edition
– Posted on January 18, 2019
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Having tried it for a day or two once, I can attest that plastic sheeting makes a wholly unsuitable substitute for window glass. Whenever I see something like this, I always wonder how the window got smashed. Thieves/vandals? Or did someone close the hatch when a crate or piece of furniture was not far enough in? Or perhaps an errant foul ball at a local high school ball diamond? However it happened, I hope they can get a proper repair made before they get a ticket.
I’m not going to laugh one bit. The Willamette Valley in January is one of the worst places to have a missing window.
Martini Sienna?
My thoughts too! Hey, my Sienna spotted a Nurburgring Nordschleife sticker on the back, so why not!
The blue tarp is there for weight savings, glass is heavy.
I think you’ve nailed, Jim.
It’s a US cover-up.
My last non-glass window was crafted from plywood, roughly cut a bit larger than the external window opening, secured with a 2X4 across the inside. It was made necessary by my foolishness, driving my car a bit too far to the side of a snowy road to kick up the plowbank and coming into contact with a mailbox post. It took out the passenger side mirror, made a scrape across the windows on the passenger side front and rear doors, and, to my chagrin, broke the rear quarter glass of my Outback. The rest of the ride home was cold, and my son, who was in the passengers seat, was both scared and annoyed at the stupidity of his old man.
A call to a local junkyard got mirror and window ordered, but they were two days away and the forecast was for more cold and snow. Years worth of observing the misfortunes of others who crafted windows from plastic bags, tarps, duct tape or cardboard, or unsatisfactory combinations of the above, convinced me that my choice was the best of several bad ones. It wasn’t so bad as far as wooden windows go, I guess, but it made the car look junky and was a constant reminder of my foolishness.
Though I have become a pretty decent amateur mechanic over the years, I have never branched out into window replacement. Past broken windshields were replaced professionally, paid for by the insurance company, and I didn’t know how the rear quarter windows were held in place. Some web searching and forensic analysis convinced me that it wasn’t such a big deal, so I bought a sucker-holder and a tube of adhesive and went for it.
It turns out there is more to it than I realized, and it was a messy process, but I got the job done, and, if the need again arises, will surely do a better job the next time. The only signs of my amateur installation are a small kink in the exterior molding, some adhesive residue (that stuff is tough) on the outside of the window, and some black smudges on the inside of the C pillar, and, I almost forgot, the scrape across the door windows. I still find the occasional chunk of glass when cleaning out the car.
I once had a rock thrown through my windshield. After replacement and vacuuming, one day I turned the heater to vent and there was a little bit of glass “dust” that came out. Be cautious of that.
Good thought. Fortunately this was the rear quarter window, so no vents for glass to get in.
In my F100, though, I cleaned out the heater plenums in the cowl and found years worth of mouse nests. It made me wonder how much mouse poop and dander I had been breathing while driving that thing.
I’ve seen this van a couple of times, once before the window broke and the next on Craigslist. It was put together to run the Gambler 500 in central Oregon. It amounts to trying to, in one weekend, complete 500 miles of off-road driving (thus the OHV sticker on the tailgate) in either the cheapest car you can find (no more than $500), or the most ridiculous one, and cleaning garbage off the trails. Whoever put this van together was definitely going for the Martini theme and called it the “Gamblini”. I’m afraid that’s all I know.