Wow. Sorry I didn't see this one until this morning. What follows are a few bullet points from someone actually in the insurance/body repair business.
The main thing at the moment is the car owner never authorized repairs by the body shop. That is a big no-no. Safelite is likely in big trouble for that. It would matter what the language on their own repair authorization for the windshield said, but I doubt it addresses sending something out to a third party for damage they caused.
The photos weren't very good for me to go by, but they certainly did a major screw up. Could that be fixed by welding back together? Yeah, probably. Tricky repair, though. And I'd have thought the dash would have to come out so it wouldn't get damaged by weld splatter and to make sure any wiring behind there didn't get damaged.
This would not total the car. Woody, stop the hysterical commenting. I love you, man, but your posts here were almost universally wrong.
In this instance, I would have recommended making a claim through the owner's own insurance and let them run interference with Safelite. And yes, using an insurer's recommended repair shop typically comes with a lifetime repair guarantee, which in this case would have been a real bonus against future windshield leaks, cracks, etc.
Safelite, IMO, is the training academy for all new glass installers. They all start there, get 'trained', then move on to other shops or open their own businesses if they are any good because nobody ever stays at Safelite long. They are the Autozone of glass companies.
Windshields now are often structural items. They are engineered to add rigidity to the car along with the proper adhesives. Safelite knows this. Some installers don't know or care. Finding a good glass guy is more important today than it was twenty years ago. Plus now we've got all sorts of electronic garbage that is tied into the windshield.
The Eagle Collision case is very well known in the industry. It was a much needed wake-up call to a lot of shops. My personal opinion, having reviewed it back when it was a thing, was that the people who died in that car would have been dead anyway. It was a very bad wreck. I don't feel the roof repair mattered all that much. But, it was done wrong, and they rightfully got spanked for it.
So, to the original poster: in this rare case I would say it is lawyer time, which means all communication now must go through them. Safelite can't speak to you directly if you are represented, and any calls you get should be referred to your attorney. You will be without your car for a long time, probably, because the attorney will probably not want it touched further. They can probably address loss of use as part of the case. This will either be a long slog or it may end quickly, but the latter is only if the attorney sees a marginal monetary return for them. At this point I'm not sure there is much your own insurance can do for you, since the car was (supposedly) repaired.
