Why You Should Fix Your Chipped Windscreen This Winter
As we enter the festive season, there is no better time to deal with that pesky little chip on your windscreen. The winter months can be particularly tough on windscreens. If you already have a chipped windscreen, the sudden drop in temperature and the associated strains on your windscreen, can dramatically worsen the chip and spread the damage, eventually becoming a crack. In these circumstances, a chipped windscreen grows from being a minor annoyance to becoming a major hazard.
Windscreen chip repair should be at the top of your to do list before conditions worsen in the coming months, violent winds, heavy rain, temperature drops and snowfall can all provoke a little chip to grow into an irreparable crack, so it’s always better to fix a chipped windscreen sooner rather than later.
Winter is undoubtedly tough on your vehicle glass but there is never a bad time to deal with easily repairable windscreen chips. After all, a windscreen chip could, at any time, grow into a much more serious crack. The everyday pressures put on your glass by vibrations, uneven road surfaces and speedbumps can cause a chip on a windscreen to expand.
Even the smallest chips can develop into a much bigger problem, so investing in a stone chip repair the moment you notice the chip, will save you money and stress down the line.
Causes of chipped windscreens
There are obviously a great deal of potential causes for a chipped windscreen. The most common however are other road users, especially trucks or buses. These larger vehicles often flick up stones and other debris toward your windscreen from the surface of the road. This situation can worsen during the winter months as there may be loose grit deployed to prevent your car from skidding. The inclement winter weather can also result in damage to roads leading to more debris on the road surface.
Windscreen chip repair can also be necessary if you have washed your car with the incorrect tools. Cleaning your windscreen with anything rough or abrasive can cause pitting in the glass. Similarly, if you spray your glass too closely with a powerful pressure washer you may well find yourself fixing a chipped windscreen in the near future.
Windscreens in Winter
As the weather gets colder, the risk of windscreen chips developing into cracks only gets greater as freezing temperatures put extra strain on your windscreen. Chips can spread rapidly in cold weather, especially if they’re freezing and then thawing out every day. As your car glass freezes, then warms up again, it will contract and expand, leading the chips to expand and ultimately develop into a crack. When the windscreen freezes overnight, frost can get into the chip and could cause it to spread even more dramatically. And that’s before we consider the risks associated with snow. The weight of snow sitting overnight on your windscreen can cause a great deal of stress on the glass. It’s better to invest in an early windscreen chip repair before you have any snowfall to contend with.
Chipped windscreen care
If you haven’t had the chance to get your windscreen chip repaired before winter sets in, you should be extremely cautious.
- Use de-icer on the windscreen to remove ice, rather than a scraper. This is by far the safest way to de-ice a chipped windscreen, with no sudden temperature change or anything to exacerbate the chip. Most importantly, never ever use boiling water to melt away a covering of ice.
- A windscreen cover is a great way to protect your car glass against the potential damage caused by overnight frost. Not only will covering your windscreen save you time defrosting your windscreen, but it’ll protect any existing chips from drastically worsening overnight.
- Get a professional repair – The best solution for preventing a windscreen chip from spreading is the most obvious one – to get it repaired straight away. While you could drive for a year without a chip spreading, there’s a risk it could crack within a day or two, and then you have a much larger and more expensive issue on your hands. Winter is a particularly risky period but there is never a bad time to fix a chipped windscreen.
Get your windscreen chip repair today!
If your windscreen does become chipped, our advice is to address the problem immediately. In cold weather, chips and pitting will only get more serious. Cold temperatures and temperature fluctuations almost always result in chips turning into cracks. Getting a chip repaired now can save you from the added expense of a full windscreen replacement down the road, and it can ensure your safety this winter. Click here to learn how we determine whether a windscreen chip is repairable.
Check the Allglass® / Autoglass® blog again soon for more winter motoring tips, as well as guides and explainers like this one. Safe travels.
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