Previous research indicated that glued-in rods (GiR), an adhesively bonded joint in which metallic rods are glued into wood blocks, are an efficient method to connect or reinforce structures in timber engineering, and represent a success story for adhesive bonding in civil engineering. In literature, GiR are mostly manufactured under perfect conditions, regarding both surface states and geometry, with outermost care taken to avoid any deviation thereof. However, in reality GiR are typically manufactured by staff that received little to no training, in particular with regard to the peculiarities of adhesive bonding. Thus the very high standards that apply in other industries, as for example aerospace, are hard to achieve. Additional constraints result from the relatively narrow gap in which the adhesive is injected, and the difficulty to monitor its complete and correct filling. For the manufacturing of GiR-connections several different techniques are used, which were mostly validated empirically. The influence of different manufacturing methods and potential defects on joint performance was investigated. Additionally, this paper sheds additional light on the influence of different typical defects on the load capacity of GiR with steel rods. Several defects, such as corrosion, contamination by oil, dust, wood chips, sand and moisture were considered, and performance of joints manufactured thereof compared to joints without such defects. The results of the research demonstrate that defects on GiR result in a non-negligible reduction of the load capacity, but that this effect is somewhat smaller than expected. Accordingly, GiR connections might be considered as relatively robust with regard to manufacturing.