AtWhatMileage
Glass · 7 owner reports

Windshield cracking on the 2013 Jeep Wrangler

Only 5 reports for this mode came with an odometer reading, which is too few for percentiles to mean anything. The page is here because someone linked to it; treat the figures as anecdotes, and see the full report for this year instead.

Reports of this failure 7
With an odometer reading 5
Reports per 1,000 built 0.1 per 1,000
Filed below 36,000 miles 100%
Mention a crash, fire or injury 0
Typical repair $300–$1,600
What it means when it happens Moderate
Rank among this year's problems 26th

When windshield cracking gets reported

There are 7 reports of windshield cracking on the 2013 Jeep Wrangler, 5 with a mileage attached. That is too few to place the failure on the odometer with any confidence.

A part like this is normally expected to survive 45,000 miles. It is the 26th most-reported problem on this model year.

The whole distribution

Percentiles of the 5 odometer readings owners gave.
10th25thMedian 75th90th
— — 10,595 miles — —

Read the 10th percentile as “one report in ten arrived this early”. Exact figures are shown in this table because it is the table of record; everywhere else on the site they are rounded to the precision the sample can carry.

What a percentile can and cannot tell you here

These five numbers describe the readings owners gave, in order. The median is the middle one: half the reports arrived below it. The 10th and 90th are the edges of the bulk of the distribution, and the distance between them is the part worth reading. A tight spread — say 70,000 to 95,000 miles — points at something that wears out on a schedule, and the schedule is knowable. A wide one, 20,000 to 190,000, points at a fault that hits some cars and never troubles others, which means the mileage on the listing in front of you tells you very little about your odds.

What these figures are not is a survival curve. Every reading here comes from a car whose owner filed a complaint, so the sample contains only failures: it cannot say what share of the fleet made it past 150,000 miles untouched, because those owners had nothing to report. Nor is the mileage the moment of failure — it is the odometer reading as recalled at the time of filing, which may be weeks later and is sometimes rounded to the nearest ten thousand by the person typing it.

Percentiles are shown at all only once 8 readings exist for the vehicle and mode. Below that the middle of a handful of numbers is noise wearing a decimal point, so the figures are withheld rather than dressed up.

What happens, and what it costs

Putting it right typically runs $300–$1,600 at an independent US shop. That range is an editorial estimate held in this site's failure-mode catalogue, not a figure from NHTSA, and it is a repair cost rather than a diagnosis cost.

The same failure on other years

The same failure is reported on 3 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2018, at a median of 10,000 miles, and latest on the 2013 at 10,000 miles.

By volume the 2018 carries the most reports, with 9; the 2013 has 7. A mode that appears across most years of a model is usually a design choice rather than a bad batch.

If one year stands out to the left, that is the year to avoid; if the whole line sits at a similar mileage, this is wear rather than a defect in one production run.

Median
  1. 1997 Jeep Wrangler windshield cracking
    no odometer readings given
    —
  2. 2005 Jeep Wrangler windshield cracking 35k
  3. 2006 Jeep Wrangler windshield cracking 10k
  4. 2013 (this one) 11k
  5. 2014 Jeep Wrangler windshield cracking 60k
  6. 2018 Jeep Wrangler windshield cracking 8k
  7. 2020 Jeep Wrangler windshield cracking
    no odometer readings given
    —
  8. 2021 Jeep Wrangler windshield cracking
    no odometer readings given
    —
  9. 2023 Jeep Wrangler windshield cracking 9k

Tick median reported mileage Solid middle half of reports Faint 10th to 90th percentile Colour how bad the failure is when it happens

What owners wrote

Verbatim from NHTSA complaint narratives, trimmed for length. The mileage is the one the owner gave.

While driving from olympia wa. To marysville wa. I turned on the vehicle defroster and my windshield cracked. There is a small rock impact toward the bottom of the windshield and the crack extends from there. The nearest dealership is trying to sell me a $650.00 or more replacement windshield which will not crack and the chrysler corp will not return e-mails or assist over the phone. I believe they are using substandard windshields which will crack upon first impact where other vehicles will not. It poses as a safety issue limiting visibility due to not being able to run my defroster. When the defroster is run the crack expands. Being in the military I personally can not afford to replace my windshield every time something bounces off of it. *tr

2,500 miles NHTSA complaint 1042899 filed 2014-03-04

I was driving my 2013 jeep wrangler and the wiper was iced up so I turned the defroster on high and my windshield cracked. There were no vehicles on the road with me and nothing hit my windshield. The crack is about 6 inches long running laterally toward the driver side and originated right above the right defroster vent the crack has no external ridge and appears to be related to a body stress issue. The temperature was 20 degrees and the issue occurred at 3:20 pm. *tr

10,595 miles NHTSA complaint 1144354 filed 2015-01-04

I was driving my 2013 jeep wrangler and the wiper was iced up so I turned the defroster on high and my windshield cracked. There were no vehicles on the road with me and nothing hit my windshield. The crack is about 6 inches long running laterally toward the driver side and originated right above the right defroster vent the crack has no external ridge and appears to be related to a body stress issue. The temperature was 20 degrees and the issue occurred at 3:20 pm. *tr

10,595 miles NHTSA complaint 1144355 filed 2015-01-04

Also reported on the 2013 Jeep Wrangler

Other powertrain problem

201 reports median 22k

Other steering problem

153 reports median 19k

Other engine problem

90 reports median 65k

Other electrical problem

53 reports median 59k

Cruise control failure

31 reports median 51k

How far this goes

This page is kept out of search results because 7 reports is not enough to publish percentiles from. It stays reachable because somebody looking at this exact car would rather see the reports than be told there are none.

Complaints are voluntary, so 7 is a floor and not a count of affected cars. Mileages are typed in by owners and cluster on round numbers. And the mode itself is assigned by software reading the complaint text, which is reliable in bulk and fallible one report at a time.

Questions this page answers

At what mileage does windshield cracking happen on the 2013 Jeep Wrangler?

Across 5 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 10,000 miles. A quarter were filed before — and a quarter after —. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.

How common is windshield cracking on the 2013 Jeep Wrangler?

7 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.1 per 1,000 vehicles. Complaints are voluntary, so this is a floor rather than a count of affected cars.

What this is and is not. These are the mileages at which owners chose to complain to a federal agency, which is not the same as the mileage at which the part fails on every car. It skews toward failures that happened outside warranty, cost real money, or frightened someone. It is still the only public dataset that carries failure mileage at all, and the shape of a few hundred readings is informative even when a single one is not. Methodology · JSON · this failure on other cars

Source Owner complaints and recall records published by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, model years 1996–2027 Figures rebuilt Published by AtWhatMileage How every figure is computed