I can remember years ago when many didn’t know about windshield repair. The attitude in many instances was nuts I got a chip on my windshield. I’ll see about getting it repaired when I’ve got some extra money like at the end of the month or my next pay day.
Now I get many calls from individuals within minutes or hours of them getting a chip on their auto’s windshield. That’s a good thing, however many of those don’t understand what a windshield repair actually is. That a repair is actually filling the chip, not just putting a drop of chemical on the impact point and calling it repaired. Unfortunately because many don’t know what a good repair is they get taken advantage of and it is almost epidemic the number of bad repairs that are out there. Below are a couple of the bad repairs I’ve seen lately.
This doesn’t look like it was repaired, does it? But somebody paid money for a drop of pit filler to be placed over it. Will it prevent the windshield from cracking? No Way. I was able to remove most of the resin someone else had put in this chip and save the windshield with a professional repair.
Here’s another one of these quick repairs. The center was pretty well filled, however nothing was done to fill any of the radiating cracks. The result is that the repair most likely will fail. There was no way short of drilling into each crack to fill them. By doing this the repair would look terrible and there would be no guarantee that it would hold.
To give just an idea of how bad it is in terms of people being taken advantage of, I can remember meeting with a guy to repair his windshield. He had a large star on his windshield and he questioned why it would take 30 to 45 minutes to perform a repair; after all he had a number of repairs performed by another company that had gone out of business. That company had been able to perform repairs in 5 minutes according to the customer. The repairs didn’t look any different afterwards but hey he didn’t have a cracked windshield. He was amazed when I pulled out my tools to go to work. The other guy simply pulled out a bottle of stuff, place a drop over the chip along with a piece of plastic. Minutes later he pulled off the plastic and scraped the area with a razor blade. The repair was complete and the repair guy was paid $35 for his 5 minutes of work.
I’ve talked to people over the years that have told me that “windshield repair doesn’t work”. While I usually will see a couple of my repairs fail during the year; many of the failed windshield repairs performed by the fast repair guys that have convinced those that windshield repair doesn’t work are 5 minute repairs. On several occasions when I’ve had the opportunity to view the failed repairs I’ve found a chip in which only the center has resin in it. The bulk of the windshield chip has no sign of resin in it.
So how can you find a windshield repair company that will perform a good repair? First realize in most states and that includes Oklahoma, there are no licenses or regulations to certify a windshield repair tech knows what they are doing. In fact in Oklahoma, there is more regulation for someone that cuts your hair than repair or replaces your windshield. Consider these thoughts when getting a windshield repair.
a) Price – If the price is excessively low look for another shop.
b) Time – To do a proper repair figure a ½ hour. If the shop says the repair can be done in 5 minutes, find another shop.
c) Guarantee – Find a shop that guarantees their work and doesn’t just credit the money you paid for the repair towards a new windshield.
d) Track Record - Look for a shop that has been in business awhile. If they’ve been in business a long time they must be doing something right.
Finally watch out for glass replacement shops. While there are some that perform excellent windshield repairs, many don’t. Low prices, advertised quick 5 minute repairs, and guarantees that if you aren’t happy or if the chip repair fails they will credit your money towards a new windshield are something to stay away from.
Remember a windshield repair is an investment and a bad repair will cost you more money just like a bad investment.
