pieces Of Advice: Don't Touch Crack

If you own a car there is a pretty good chance you have had a stone chip in your windshield at one time or another. Your annoyed by it and it is a minor distraction while driving. The small chip doesn't look pretty but it certainly doesn't reduce your cars mobility or functionality. It's not something you feel needs to be taken care of right away.

In my case the stone chip occured in November of this year right after I bought my car. I was extemely pissed off and told myself I was going to fix it right away but after a good nights sleep and a couple busy weeks and the upcomming launch of the Nintendo Wii it was on the bottom of my list of priorities.

Between the time of the incident and January I notice the crack got a little bit bigger most likely due to moisture freezing in the crack. This should have been enough to get me worried enough to get me to my nearest auto glass specialist but i figured I could hold out a little longer after all it wasn't covering the entire windsheild.

Wendsday of this week the weather was nice enough and I decided to clean my car. As I was washing the inside of the windshield I notice the crack was getting bigger. Now with the crack being about an inch I figured it was time to fix the problem.

I decided to wait until saturday, which would be today, as I work full time and didn't want to loose my attendance bonus at work. The crack grew about another half inch as I was driving home yesterday.

Today I went to my freindly neiborhood auto glass repair shop. I showed them the crack and they told me there was a pretty good chance the crack would get bigger as they were trying to repair it. I didn't like this at all. I went home and phoned around to check with other auto glass specialists. The general consensis was the same. as I was driving back to the location of the original buisness my windsheid crack tripled in size....

There is now NO chance of repair it will have to be replaced! The cost of this will be upwards of $260 which was about the same cost as my Nintendo Wii. If I would have gotten the problem when it had happened It would have only cost me $35 at my local auto glass repair shop.

Lessons Learned:
Get your head out of your ass! Small problems become big problems if you ignore them.

If you currently have this minor problem with your windshield I stongly suggest you fix it. It may not seem important but a small chip can quickly turn into a full window spanning crack.

Auto glass buisnesses are usually open from 9 to 5 and they are usually open Monday to Saturday. The cost to repair ranges from about $25 to $50 Most of the major shops are walk in and don't require an appointment. This means you can get your chip fixed shortly after the problem occurs.

If you wait vibrations, pressure, moisture or temperature could cause the crack to spread. It may happen in small incriments or suddenly all at once. If you let the crack get over an inch it could be too late to fix it.