One of the most common questions we get asked when someone calls about a damaged windscreen is whether it can be repaired, or whether it needs replacing altogether. It’s not always obvious just from looking at it, so here’s how we actually work it out.
What usually makes a chip repairable
Small stone chips are the classic repairable damage. As a rough guide, if the damage is smaller than about a 2p coin, sits away from the edge of the glass, and isn’t directly in your line of sight when you’re driving, there’s a good chance it can be repaired rather than replaced. A repair works by injecting resin into the chip under pressure, which stops it spreading and restores most of the strength and clarity of the glass.
Damage near the edge of the windscreen is a different story. The edge is where the glass is bonded to the frame and does a lot of the structural work, so chips and cracks out there are usually treated as a replacement job even if they look small.
When we’d recommend replacement instead
A few situations that generally point towards a full windscreen replacement rather than a repair:
- The crack is longer than roughly the length of a wiper blade
- There’s more than one area of damage
- The chip or crack sits directly in the driver’s eyeline
- The damage has already started to spread across the glass
Temperature changes, rough roads and further stone impacts can all cause a small chip to spread into a crack surprisingly quickly, which is why we always say it’s worth getting damage looked at sooner rather than later. We cover more of the common questions on this on our FAQ page, including what happens if you keep driving on a cracked windscreen.
How we make the call
In practice, we’ll usually ask a few questions about the damage over the phone or when you send photos, and confirm it properly when we’re with the vehicle. Our team has been assessing and fixing windscreen damage across Bristol and the surrounding areas for over 30 years, so it’s rarely a difficult call to make – the difficulty is normally just knowing what to look for before you ring around.
Whichever it turns out to be, our mobile team can carry out the work wherever suits you, using British Standard-approved glass for any replacement. Have a look at our services page for the full range of what we cover, or get in touch for a quote and we’ll tell you straight whether your windscreen needs a repair or a replacement.