OEM — the manufacturer's own part
Glass made by the company that supplied the car factory, carrying the vehicle maker's logo, sold through the dealer network. Identical to what came out, including thickness, tint band, curvature and any coating.
It is the most expensive tier, and for most vehicles it is more expensive than the difference justifies.
OEE — the same factory, without the badge
Original Equipment Equivalent: made by the same manufacturer, on the same tooling, to the same specification, without the vehicle maker's logo printed on it. Pilkington, Saint-Gobain, AGC, Fuyao and Guardian all supply both channels.
This is the sweet spot and what we fit by default. Same glass, same optical specification, without paying for a logo.
Aftermarket — everything else
Made by a manufacturer that never supplied the factory, reverse-engineered from the original. Quality varies enormously. Good aftermarket glass is genuinely fine on an older car with no camera. Bad aftermarket glass has visible optical distortion — a wave you notice at the edge of the sweep when you scan across the road.
The one case where it is a real problem is a car with a forward camera behind the mirror. The camera reads the world through that pane. Distortion a human eye tolerates becomes a measurement error for a stereo system like Subaru EyeSight, and this is where cheap glass produces calibration failures that no amount of adjustment fixes.
Need this done rather than explained? There is no shop to drive to. We come to wherever your car already is — your driveway, your workplace car park, an apartment lot, or the side of the road it stopped on — anywhere in greater Sacramento, with no call-out fee and no mileage charge. Give us the year, make and model and you will have a firm price before the call ends.