The other day while I was in Midwest City doing a windshield repair, an individual came over and asked me about his scratched windshield. It seems on their fairly new truck they had gotten out on a construction site and the windshield had gotten a coat of our Oklahoma red dust on it. To clean the windshield they turned on the windshield washers. To their shock they later found the glass was severely scratched where the windshield wipers sweep.

Unfortunately after looking at the damage I concluded that nothing could be done except replace the windshield. I've seen this kind of scratching on the back glass of vehicles with rear wipers. There are a number of reasons that no repair could be done even though the scratches were so shallow that you couldn't feel them.

First the damage included the driver's side. With that much damage  I don't think it would be possible to polish that large of an area without creating distortion in front of the driver.

Second having to polish the whole windshield just isn't cost affective. The cost of labor to polish that windshield would out weigh the replacement cost.

Another type of damage I've been asked several times about is sandblasted or severely pitted windshields. This is usually found on cars or trucks with high mileage. Although I did talk to one person recently in which they had driven through a dust storm. The appearance of this damage shows up the most when driving into the sun or headlights. Due to thousands of little pits reflecting light, it can be blinding.

Unfortunately there is no repair possible. Polishing the windshield wouldn't be practical, further more distortion could be created. Presently no windshield treatment or coating exists to restore the appearance.

The only thing that can be done in either of these situations is replace the windshield. To increase the life of auto glass there is some simple things you can do.

Keep the windshield and back glass clean. Turning on a windshield wiper with red Oklahoma clay or sand on it will scratch the glass.

Make sure your windshield wipers are in good shape; no tears, no bends, no broken blades, equal no scratches.

Please remember clear vision eliminates accidents.

On occasion I will get called or have been asked to fix a chip that has a large impact point (pit). Half the time the damage has been repaired by someone else and the resin has come out of the pit. Other times the resin in the chip has deteriorated badly to the point it doesn't look like it had been repaired.

The other day was a classic case of the above. I had a customer ask me to fix damage that had already had been repaired. While the work had been done recently by an unknown party it showed all the problems encountered with a chip having a very large pit; over a 1/2" inch in diameter. It also showed some real professional ability, as it had drops of cured resin on the surface of the windshield that would interfere with the wiper blade operation.

As you can see the repair looks bad, the photo just doesn't show how bad it looked. The spot by the number 12 is cured resin.

While the safe recommendation is to repair chips with pits less than 3/8" of an inch, I limit it to 1/4" of an inch or less. About the diameter of the eraser on the end of a standard number 2 pencil. Here are the reasons why.

Chips with impact points that large usually are larger than recommended for repair. Plus surface cracks will leak while resin is under pressure. Meaning a complete fill of resin isn't possible.

Large pits go extremely deep and as such from the inside the repaired area will have a bubble appearance. Many people I deal with object to this visual flaw. Further if it extends to the point that the center laminate is exposed; repair isn't recommended.

Occasionally damage with large impact points has damaged the inside layer of glass. No repair under this situation is recommended as this is a major safety issue.

Lifting or raising of the resin happens with all resins we have seen with large impact points. This can affect windshield wiper operations that can result in a safety hazard.

Finally I know that a large pit can be filled before the repair is done so a level spot is made for an injector to seal against. It still can't correct the other problems listed.

While I know this blog is about saving money by repairing your windshield, some things can't be repaired. Like long cracks and chips with large impacts. In these instances don't waste your money get a quality, safe windshield replacement.

The auto inspection scheduled for today is now over. Even with the cold, cloudy, damp, weather we had a few brave soles come out for the free car inspection. Turn out was low probably due to the weather conditions.

Anyway I took a few photos.

Mr. Webb (seated) working with some of the students during the inspection.

Here's the future mechanics that did the work.