D’oh!

20 March 2019

D’oh! Well this is embarrassing. ?

I washed the car the other day, and decided to remove all the various window stickers. There were old service stickers, VW roadside assistance (long expired), some oil brand, rego reminder (NSW) and – of course – the dealer sticker on the rear hatch. So far, so good.

I also thought I would remove the EzyTag toll tag base from the windscreen, as SA has no toll roads. Hopefully we never will. This however proved difficult. It was really stuck on there. As it was getting late I decided I would search the internet for the best method of removal and do it another day.

That day was today.

A search revealed the removal instructions as defined on the official EzyTag site. Essentially, they suggest using the tag itself to rotate the base back and forward to slowly soften the glue and then rotate in one direction until it comes off.

Sounds easy… but the car came with the base only. No tag.

I dug around in one of our ‘junk‘ drawers to see if I could locate the old tag I used to have when I lived in Sydney, since this is also where we sourced the car. Sure enough, the tag was there. I took it to the car and attempted to mate it with the base. Despite being a 15 year old tag, it looked like the fitting was correct and that it should connect, but it was proving to be stubborn. After several failed attempts, I thought that perhaps a little more force was needed and that if I could get it lined up and give it a small thump it might click into place.

Boy, was I wrong!

We now have a spiderweb of cracks about 30-40 cm in diameter centred above the EzyTag base. Who knew the windscreen would be quite so fragile? Automotive glass is usually pretty tough. I guess it’s not designed to take impacts from the inside!

After a few expletives (quite a few), I went into the house to start pricing a new windscreen. No point putting that off as it will only get worse with time, and it could ruin our brand new $70 wiper blades. (can you believe wiper blades cost $70 – plus more for the rear blade?) It may also leak, although that’s less likely.

On a whim I also decided to check my roadside assistance and insurance, and low and behold if the car insurance doesn’t include “free” windscreen replacements. Whew! While this has been annoying and a little embarrassing, at least it won’t be costly.

A new screen will be fitted tomorrow.

I guess that’s one way to remove the EzyTag base. ?