All car owners sooner or later face the problem of cracks and chips on the windshield. It is known that such defects significantly reduce the visibility of the road, and therefore make movement unsafe. The general appearance of the car also suffers, losing its presentability.
It is almost impossible to avoid such troubles, but there is an option to spend windshield crack repairwithout replacing it.
Types of windshield damage
There are several main characteristic damage to the windshield. Among them:
- chips — are characterized by a local loss of part of the glass surface, but do not reduce visibility. Their elimination (if there are no accompanying cracks) is carried out with the help of a photopolymer and further polishing of the glass. At the same time, the problem with a chip should be solved immediately after its appearance, in order to avoid the appearance of cracks, whose repair is more time-consuming and expensive;
- cracks — significantly reduces the visibility of the windshield and over time may lead to the need for its complete replacement;
- branched crack — characterized by numerous branches from the epicenter of the impact. This type of defects is the most dangerous, since it not only leads to a sharp decrease in visibility, but also refracts light, and therefore greatly distorts visibility.
Damage Features
When sending a car for glass repair, you need to know that even after all the work, it will not be possible to achieve an ideal state. This is explained:
- dirt and dust that got into the crack and will not allow the polymer to completely fill the cavity;
- with a strong impact, the glass structure is partially broken (the inner film peels off). It is because of this that the glass becomes somewhat cloudy in the area of damage;
- the inability to achieve complete homogeneity of glass and polymer, which can lead to various kinds of defects (for example, slight refraction of light).
If cracks occur:
- as much as possible to protect the ingress of dirt and dust into it (this can be done by gluing transparent adhesive tape);
- reduce the speed when driving to the minimum (to avoid crack propagation due to body vibrations);
- refuse to wash glass with shampoo until repair work is carried out.
At the same time, the cost of complex repair work to eliminate cracks will directly depend on the size of the defect, the quality of the glass and the urgency of the entire procedure.
