A chip, crack or split on your car’s windscreen can be more than just a minor inconvenience. If it isn’t fixed right away, it can result in the entire windscreen breaking up or being ruined. While it is usually easy to get a minor chip fixed, it can still be annoying when it happens. There are a number of things that cause car windscreen damage, and not all of them are things you might have thought of. Here is a list of the things most likely to have you heading for your local windscreen repair shop:
Collisions
A leading cause of both minor and major windscreen damage is a collision, whether with another vehicle or a stationary object. While this is most likely in a head on collision where the impact is focussed on the front of your car, it can happen with other types of impact too as a result of shock and vibrations going through the body.
Accidental Damage or Vandalism
Another serious cause of damage is the things that can happen to your car when you are not in it. This could be something innocent, but irritating like having a child accidentally break the windscreen of your parked car while playing with a ball, or more malevolent like someone breaking it to steal something inside your car. Parking only in supervised garages and other secure places is the best way to avoid these problems.
Gravel
Gravel chips and fragments thrown up from the road are probably the most irritating cause of windscreen chips, because there is basically no way to avoid them. Even on the most well maintained tarmac roads there are thousands of little stones and gravel chips, which when thrown up from the ground by your tyres (or another motorist’s) at speed can leave a nasty little chip on your windscreen. What can be most dangerous about these chips is that often people underestimate how badly the windscreen is damaged because the chip itself doesn’t look too bad, and continue to drive with the general integrity of the glass compromised. When this is the case, even the weather can eventually cause the windscreen to crack severely. Most drivers will have their windscreen damaged by stones or gravel at some point in their driving lives, but it is important to remember to get it repaired right away. This can often be done with a resin that won’t require you to replace the entire windscreen.
Weather
Another cause of small chips, which can’t be avoided really, is hail. While those big, hard hail stones that have the potential to damage a car are fairly rare, if it starts to fall while you are driving there isn’t much you can do except hope you’ll escape without damage. Other weather conditions can also damage the windscreens of cars, because changes in temperature between the edges and centre of the glass weaken the stability. This rarely causes an undamaged windscreen to break but can mean problems on a hot or cold day if your glass is already flawed.
Many causes of windscreen damage are hard if not impossible to avoid, and most of the time it is just an unlucky coincidence when it happens. However, make every effort to minimise further risk by getting your window repaired as soon as you can.