My fairly new windshield on the car got a rock chip yesterday. I was able to get it in to the windshield shop today to get it fixed. Had a one year warranty to fix any rock chips for free.

I thought that when rock chips were fixed, you wouldn't even be able to tell that there was a chip there. These guys left a rough spot on there that is clearly visible and not clear at all.

Just looking for some advice here. Thanks.

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Justin

 

I had someone repair my windshield just a little chip now the crack has run out both sides of the chip and it's starting to run across my winshield day by day. When i got mine repaired it didnt leave that much roughness just a little visible spot where it got fixed Hopefully yours doesnt do that

 

I think the chip fix is just to keep it from cracking all over. I have never seen a fix that was clear and smooth. And the chip fix in the tinted area will take away the tint with some methods.

If the chip is in your vision, I would get it replaced with new or used.

 

Just hopped over here from the "Warranty" thread in this forum. The issue of insurance came up. I pay something like 15 dollars per year for glass insurance on my policy.
Now this is a good value because you are likely to experience a stone chip or worse during the life of your truck.
My first truck I got hit by a kicked up stone and that put a 15 inch crack in the windshield. Cost to replace the several hundred dollar windshield=3 years payments of glass insurance premium. Call it 50 bucks.
Same truck 8 years later, loading my riding lawn mower into the bed to mow with up at the cabin and slipped of the clutch, shattering the rear window. Upgraded to tinted rear sliding glass for no more than the premiums over the course of ownership.
New-to-me 97 just last week: saw the rock fall out of the bed of the truck in front of me. Watched it kick up in the air in sloooooooow mooootiiooooon and head right for the center of my windshield. Angled the truck to the right, but not far enough soon enough and it hit 6 inches above my inspection sticker in the lower left corner of the windshield.
Called the insurance company. They wanted to know "fix or replace"? I opted for the repair, thinking lets see how this looks. I got the same results as 88gm. Still see it, rough on the outside. I called the insurance company. No problem they say. We'll put a new one in. Getting it done tomorrow.
My wife has one in her windshield, too. The repair took well, but you can still see the star. But it is way over on the passenger side-when driving you can't even see it. So we were satisfied with that repair.
I seem to remember the repairs being advertised as almost invisible at one time and saw some done that you could barely see. Maybe the process has changed due to some reason I am not aware of.

 

I've been repairing windshields for 15 years or more. It is very rare for a chip to disappear when it is repaired. There is no way to completely eliminate the fissures in the center of the star and they will refract the light. The fissures will be more visible depending on the the available light and will be more noticable when the sun is bright. The main idea for the repair is to keep the star from running and thus get more life out of the windshield. Most insurance companies won't repair a star if it is in the critical area right in front of the driver. Some stars run even if repaired but most will not unless you put the glass into a stress such as twisting the body of the vehicle as in crossing a ditch at an angle or such.

 

Thanks for all the info, guys. I feel better now that I have a better understanding of it.

Kind of off topic, but . . . . I was looking at my original receipt for my windshield. It says that the list price is ~$565 and they sold it to me for ~$85. How can this be? If I would have had full coverage insurance on my car, would they have charged my insurance company the $565?

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Justin

 

I had a guy replace a windshield in a Nisssan truck once and I asked why he was able to do it without me paying the deductible on the insurance. He showed me in a book what my insurance company pays and what the windshield costs him. There was over 200 dollars difference in the prices.....so he still makes money.
Around here, the glass companies will fix rock chips for nothing. They know they get the business if the windshield needs to be replaced.

 

88grandmarquis....That list price is from an old price sheet. The people who set the prices on autoglass (NAGS) recently reconfigured the list price and it is now about $185. The old prices were way high because the insurance companies (our friends???) demanded discounts by an ever increasing amount every year so NAGS just kept raising the list so that the glass companies could make enough profit to stay in business. I've been fighting this for 18 years so I've seen discounts go from 15% back in the late 80s to 75 and 80% last year. NAGS restructured the pricing effective March 1 and cut the list prices drastically. Now we have to charge more for labor to make any profit and the insurance companies (our friends????) are cutting our profits to the point that I am seriously considering leaving the business. The insurance companies are demanding such low prices from us when our expenses continue to rise (including the price of the premiums on the insurance that they demand that we have) that it is getting harder and harder to make ends meet. Rant off....

 

I had a rock hit my brand new Lincoln windshield the second day I had it.I it took into Safe Glass or something like that and they repaired it.I am just glad it was on the passenger side because it was very visible after repair .Good Luck!

 

The windshield in my daily driver had some chips repaired when it was on the lot I bought it from. Almost 10 years later the repairs are still holding strong. Most are barely visible even though I know where they are.

I had to replace the windshield in my 01 Lightning last year. It cost me $185 and it's guaranteed to never crack, which is good because the original cracked when I jacked the truck up on one corner. They were even goog enough to search up a glass with a matching date code for me.

 

On a good repair, you should just be able to make out a halo if you had the windshield repaired right away. What we use to do is bring the vehicle into the garage the night before and let it get warm and dry before the glass guy came. Many times unless you had circled the area with crayon you could not even find the repair, the guy was very good.

 

I had a rock chip repaired on my Nissan many years ago, and it was barely visible after the repair, but then, it wasn't all that bad a chip. My Ranger has a cracked windshield, from a chip that was never repaired. (If the previous owner had fixed that little chip, I wouldn't be looking at a new windshield right now) I was planning to pull the windshield out of my parts truck and swap it in, but it too has a rock chip, very obvious. I bought a repair kit and one day decided to fix the chip (I wanted to fix it before trying to swap windshields, to reduce to risk of it cracking during handling) When I started to clean the area and probe the chip for glas fragments, I found that it had already been repaired! I couldn't tell, it is a VERY obvious chip, and I was thinking back to the chip in my Nissan and how it all but disappeared after the repair. I guess it depends on the nature of the chip as to how much it will fade after repair. -TD

 

is thier anyway to fix a crack without replacing the glass bc i have my inspection to be done but i have no glass coverage and it will fail for the windshield

 

Probably not.....