I would not rent from budget car rental in Dublin

Have you taken this issue up with your credit card company? Did you take pictures?

Dispute the charge with your credit card company.

Sorry this happened to you. An unfortunate reminder in this day and age to fully photograph both the outside and inside of rental cars before driving away with the car.
There are a number of online complaints about Budget @ Dublin Airport— including a curious one saying it is not the same company we think of as “Budget Car Rental” but that it’s an independent company that has paid to use the name “Budget.”

Definitely challenge this with the bank issuing your credit card. They may have a number of similar complaints and that could be in favor of reversing the charges for the windshield replacement.

I should have mentioned that we did take pictures once we saw the crack and could only see it once our windshield wipers started. I sent those pictures to budget and they were dated and timed but they stuck to the fact that it was 30 minutes after we left the lot. They didn't really care that you couldn't see the crack from the outside which was obvious on the pictures. I don't think we could have captured the crack with any pictures we would have taken in the lot anyway, as there was no way either we or budget could see it. The crack later expanded as we drove and I sent pictures of that as well.

I would love to cancel my credit card charge payment to them, but they will simply stick with the fact that we signed an agreement that found no damage to the car even though of course we signed this agreement before ever seeing the car.

And thank you for your nice responses.

It sounds like the crack lengthened the longer you drove in the same way a cracked coffee mug keeps expanding until it eventually breaks.
If you have photos of the windshield from the outside of the car showing what initially appears to be no damage, you might enlarge the photos to see if anything at all shows up— any blemish in the composition of the windshield. You took photos 30 minutes later showing the crack. The question is why would a crack suddenly appear within half an hour if you didn’t have an accident ? It defies logic. The answer, of course, is that it was a pre-existing crack that expanded as the vibrations from the pavement affected the glass as you drove. Temperature variations from any cold air/rain striking the outside of the windshield along with the car heater possibly heating up the inside of the windshield could also have expanded the crack. And using the windshield wipers obviously puts pressure on the glass.

I would carefully look at the photos before you drove off with the car to see if enlarging them on a laptop or television screen shows anything at all. As a photographer, I’m amazed at what shows up with magnification. Use a magnifying glass when viewing the photos. Send ALL the time/date stamped photos of the windshield to your bank with a written dispute notice of what happened.
Budget may have a history of complaints for dubious repairs billed to trusting customers that you and I would never know about. But if the banks see a higher percentage of questionable repair charges, they will take action to reverse the charges of sketchy operators. This is why you should dispute the bill because only the banks know if they’ve received a high number of disputes in connection with this particular car rental agency.

I have never rented a car in Europe so excuse the ignorant question; do the rental companies not sell insurane to cover this sort of thing .... say it really did happen after you rented the car?

They do. However, it’s a supplemental coverage covering the windshield, tires and undercarriage of the car. It’s usually the last coverage anyone ever buys. The coverage is foreign to Americans because personal auto policies in the US don’t parse coverages in this way.

It’s usually the last coverage anyone ever buys.

Maybe not too wise.

Every week we have a new thread on the trials and tribulations of rental cars in Europe.

Given that it is a near 3 hour drive from Dublin Airport to Cork you were potentially committing a moving traffic offence in continuing to drive that distance, especially if the crack was in any way obstructing the driver's vision.
The better option would have been to turn back to Dublin, not just call them.
If the crack had further expanded and you had been involved in an accident due to obstructed vision the Gardai could have taken a more serious view on the matter.
The fact that you drove for such a distance, so it was worse than it would have otherwise been by Cork could also be seen as a negative point in any claim.

ashinar, welcome to the forum LOL

isn31c your comments are very informative. First about rentals, but mainly about the level of care that is the accepted norm in the UK. I have no reason not to believe your comments are pretty mainstream for the UK and accurate at that. But it does point out another pitfall of travel if you dont understand another culture. I presume the most proper solution would have been to pull over and call for a truck to tow the car; while where I lived in the US we would drive the car for 5 more years and never fix it. Neither right or wrong, just cultural differences.

(Mr. E, Note that the Republic of Ireland is not part of the U.K.). @isn31c, When the OP contacted the Budget car rental agency while just 30 minutes away, he was directed by them to drive the car to Cork Airport where Budget would change out the car for him. I suspect Cork Airport was not in the OP’s itinerary since he had just arrived in the country at Dublin Airport. That fact actually puts Budget in the crosshairs of liability should there have been any type of accident or citations from the Garda Siochana. The three-hour drive directed by Budget may also have further damaged the windshield. If the windshield crack was less than three inches in length, it could have been repaired. At any rate, ashinar did not take that course of action independently, but at the direction of the car rental agency itself.

And if—for any reason whatsoever—driving a car with a cracked windshield for three hours is something he should not have been directed to do, it might actually indicate to his bank how irresponsible the Budget car rental office at Dublin airport has acted.

Every week we have a new thread on the trials and tribulations of rental cars in Europe.

Mr E, you have nailed it.

While I am not laughing at the misfortunes of people who insist on renting cars in Europe, I scratch my head at it every time I read one of these posts. I used to rent cars over there, but quit about a decade ago, found it too stressful (big concerns about personal liability, damage, theft/vandalism, photo tickets in the mail, etc) and those stresses have gotten much worse in recent years as evidenced by the posts on this forum.

I got lucky, never did have any problems, never got a ticket in the mail, never had any damage assessments, etc. But I will never rent a vehicle again in Europe, and I pretty much have quit doing it here in the US, too, given the recent reports of AI damage assessments at Hertz and you have to believe all of these companies in the near future.

The "cost" of renting cars is going up, no matter how you view it.

We received a rental car that had a crack in the windshield that could not be noticed from the outside and could only be noticed once the windshield wipers started, which they did about 30 minutes into our trip.

Why would you not turn around and return to where you rented the car if it was only 30 minutes into the trip? I understand they told you to take it to another airport, but I would have turned around and taken it back to where I got it.