You woke up this morning, went to your car in the garage to go to work, and discovered that your windshield cracked for no reason. Or maybe you discovered your windshield cracked when you came out of a restaurant after a business dinner. You know nothing happened to it while you were inside.
The first thing to understand about windshield damage is that windshields don’t just crack. It may seem so when you discover the damage, but there is always an underlying reason.
Reasons a windshield can crack
There are some obvious reasons that a windshield cracks:
- Flying rocks or gravel when driving
- A rogue baseball
- A tree branch
- Hail
Typically, if the crack was the result of one of these reasons, you would have known about it before you discovered the crack.
It’s more likely that your windshield cracked due to one of the lesser known reasons for windshield cracks, chips, and other breakage.
Improper or poor installation
There are high standards for windshield installation, but mistakes happen. If the windshield isn’t installed properly, it could be loose, and vibrations could then cause stress fractures.
Temperature changes
Fluctuations in temperature, particularly if you use a defroster or even the car’s heater, can cause the glass to expand and contract. Because the glass heats faster around the edges, these expansions and contractions occur at different rates, and this leads to cracking.
Sunlight
Sunlight has much the same effect as temperature changes. It heats the metal near the edges faster than the middle of the windshield, and causes cracks.
Glass imperfections
Your windshield may have had a recall. Or there may have simply been a nearly invisible imperfection that you didn’t see.
Pressure changes
Pressure changes from things such as sudden high wind gusts, or even setting something heavy on the windshield, could potentially be enough to create a crack that seems to come out of nowhere.
What to do if your windshield cracked
It’s imperative to fix a broken windshield. It may look like a minor crack that can wait, and if it doesn’t cross your field of vision, you may figure it’s not a problem. But the damage may be more serious than it appears. Even if it’s not, a crack left alone will get worse.
Windshield repair services train their staff to be able to determine whether your windshield is repairable. At Go Glass, small bullseye or half-moon, star breaks, combination breaks, and surface pit damage can often be repaired.
To get the process started to fix broken windshield, contact GoGlass for a free quote on our windshield repair services today.