How to properly repair a chip or small crack in your windshield

It happens. You're driving down the road and a car or truck in front of you, especially 18 wheelers and dump trucks, throws up a rock or some other road debris and it smashes right into your windshield leaving a nick, chip or scratch.  The worst part is this nick or scratch is right in your line of view and very bothersome to you while driving.  So what do you do?  Do you get your windshield replaced at a cost of say $500 on average? Or do you just deal with it and keep driving?  Well now rather than replacing your windshield you can actually fix it yourself very easily.

Windshield repair is not anything new and has been around for quite some time.  It originated in the automotive used car sales sector.  Car dealers were looking for a way to get around expensive windshield replacement.  An entrepreneur in Texas came up with the idea of how to fill the cracked or scratched or nicked windshield glass so that you could never tell to the naked eye that there was any previous injury to the glass.  Basically the idea is similar to what water does in a glass crack.  Water fills the crack and then it becomes transparent to the naked eye.  Well with windshield repair an epoxy resin is used in the place of water for a long-lasting and permanent fix. 

The result is a clear repair that is much safer for driving and virtually see-through and very hard to detect. What is especially important with windshield repair is that you have to understand that windshield glass is very different from the glass in regular Windows or the side windows on your car.  Windshield glass is made so it doesn't break apart in an accident.  instead of shattering into millions of pieces it stays together and is in effect a form of safety glass.
 

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This safety glass can be compromised just by a nick or scratch if they are left to exist for too long without repair. So this is why it is essential that the Nick, chip or scratch be repaired properly as soon as possible. If it is not it is not uncommon for a little chip or scratch to become a huge crack always across the windshield completely compromising the structural rigidity and requiring complete replacement.  So you see a simple, quick, 25 minute or so repair to your windshield that costs may be $10 can stop it from becoming a $500 or so replacement.

Now how do you actually go about fixing the chip, nick or scratch?  It's as easy as purchasing a do-it-yourself (DIY) windshield repair kit which can be purchased for around $10 at your local Wal-Mart or auto supply store.  The instructions basically will tell you to thoroughly clean the area to be treated and then you will suck the air out of the scratch or chip and then replace this with a resin that cures with UV (ultraviolet) light or sunlight.  The kit will include everything needed.  Just follow the instructions and its basically a five-minute repair with a 20 to 30 minute or so cure time (the UV light of the sun cures the resin during this period).

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You can also hire someone locally to do this for you see don't even have to do it. It used to be that this would cost you $25-$40 out of your pocket. But now the insurance companies see the savings of paying $25-$30 for a permanent fix instead of $500 or so for replacement and many or most insurance companies will actually pick up the tab for the windshield repair and you actually pay nothing.  That's actually the best deal of all.  That way you don't even have to buy the kit, read the instructions, or were you about getting it wrong.  It's all done for you and you're set to go in half an hour. You can easily find these glass repair people through local phonebook or craigslist and you can also find them by searching Google and your local town or city.

So basically that's how to repair a chip, scratch or nick in your windshield quickly and effectively and in my opinion it would be best to have someone do it for you especially if your insurance company is going to pick up the bill.