What do you know about hardened glass

Post your windshield repair tips, questions, advice! Note there is a sub-forum specifically for business development questions.
Post Reply
Biffstermon
Junior Member
Posts: 14
Joined: March 28th, 2013, 9:56 am
Enter the middle number please (3): 3
Location: San Francisco Peninsula
Contact:

What do you know about hardened glass

Post by Biffstermon »

Good evening glass repair people.
Does anyone know anything about hardened or toughened laminated safety glass. I think windshields have changed over the last 5 or more years. I am not seeing as many chips and small cracks as I used to for the amount of cars that I look at each day.
Also, I used to be able to polish scratches and scrapes caused by old wipers and other things. Now I get almost no results. Then I watched a video concerning Gorilla glass which said that it would be used in auto glass in the future. From the video I got the impression that a rock from the road would not cause a crack.
Tell me it ain't so!
screenman
Senior Member
Posts: 3192
Joined: February 25th, 2004, 1:44 pm
Enter the middle number please (3): 5
Location: uk Lincolnshire
Contact:

Re: What do you know about hardened glass

Post by screenman »

I must admit I am not seeing any fewer chips, but the could be because of my customer base, I do fleets mainly and would be the first one to see the damage other than the driver.

As for toughened laminate I must say that is a new one on me, also one I would not want in may car as I like to be able to see through my screen when it collects a damage.
User avatar
Brent Deines
Moderator
Posts: 2449
Joined: September 24th, 2003, 7:54 am
Enter the middle number please (3): 5
Location: Eugene, OR
Contact:

Re: What do you know about hardened glass

Post by Brent Deines »

We haven't seeen any reduction in rock chips either but Gorilla Glass seems to be the topic of the day in the auto glass industry. They have experimented with it for windshields in high end automobiles but it is still very expensive to make a windshield out of Gorilla Glass. In my opinion it is very unlikely that it will become common place, not only because it would raise the cost of the vehicle considerably but because if it works as well as some think it will, it will be very difficult to get the prices down because the need to produce ARG windshields in volume would be reduced dramatically. It could become a standard feature in limited production $100,000+ cars at some point but not likely in high production models.
Brent Deines
Delta Kits, Inc.
Image
Biffstermon
Junior Member
Posts: 14
Joined: March 28th, 2013, 9:56 am
Enter the middle number please (3): 3
Location: San Francisco Peninsula
Contact:

Re: What do you know about hardened glass

Post by Biffstermon »

My feeling about a change in the performance of auto glass is mainly about my observation of how it is reacting to the damage, and how I have been trying to repair the damage.
I don't know how much auto glass scratch repairs you have done, but I have been at it for over 25 years. It got to the point where I was doing 3-5 per week almost every week. I even started to use some very aggressive methods for deep and/or large size scratches. In the last 5 years the business has dwindled to 1 call per month, and I have to tell them that I can't help them because what I do with scratches does not work on todays glass.
Yes, sometimes a piece of auto glass gets scratched, but it is getting more rare. I have tried repairing scratches at least 12 times with very minimal results. To the point where I can't charge for the hours that I spent. I have tried polishing and sanding the windshield, side glass, back glass, and sunroofs, it's all the same story.
The other observation that I have is that I noticed that cars from 10 years ago had more surface chips than they do now, especially noticeable on German cars. My belief is that if you take a BMW from 2005 with 60,000 freeway miles, and a BMW from 2014 with 60,000 freeway miles. The difference would be very noticeable in that the 2005 Beemer would be like driving through a snowstorm, and the 2014 is like driving with a light snow flurry.
It could be that the cars are not being driven at the same speeds as was the case before traffic became so heavy in this area. And we do have freeway sweepers more now. But I still feel that there is a change in auto glass that I will need to adapt to.
:roll:
User avatar
Brent Deines
Moderator
Posts: 2449
Joined: September 24th, 2003, 7:54 am
Enter the middle number please (3): 5
Location: Eugene, OR
Contact:

Re: What do you know about hardened glass

Post by Brent Deines »

Not sure about the 2005 vs 2015 BMW but to the best of my knowledge neither has a "toughened" windshield. We don't do a lot of scratches but not because we don't see them frquently. I've always found chip repair an headlight restoration far easier and more profitable so I charge by the hour to remove scratches and tell customers to expect an hour or more for every 12" which is typically more than they want to pay. We did one recently on a newer car that came out great but I didn't check to see if it was an OEM or an ARG windshield.

we have noticed when creating damage for training classes and trade shows that it is easier to control the type of damage with certain brands of glass. Some do seem to take a bit more of an impact to break but when they do break the damage is worse. I've chalked that up to a lower quality of glass being used in today's windshields but I could be wrong about that.

Almost all side glass and back glass is still tempered so of course scratches are much more difficult to remove. Personally I usually pass on those.

We still see a lot of pitting on the newer car windshields but I can't say whether it is more or less than on the older cars. I'll have to start paying closer attention to that I guess.
Brent Deines
Delta Kits, Inc.
Image
Glasseye
Member
Posts: 380
Joined: March 7th, 2006, 12:41 pm
Enter the middle number please (3): 5
Location: England, Staffordshire
Contact:

Re: What do you know about hardened glass

Post by Glasseye »

The rake of the windscreen on modern day cars is much more acute, which makes it more likely that a stone hitting the glass will deflect off, just leaving a small white impact point. Also, as the size of windscreens has increased, the thickness of the glass has decreased, making the glass more flexible and more likely to absorb sudden shock impact rather than break. As far as i know, most laminated glass is still made from "float" quality material, with no hardening process. The only laminated glass that had a combination of "float"( outer) and toughened ( inner) was called the " Triplex 10/20". The idea behind this was that if an occupant was in collision with the windscreen, the inner layer would shatter to a powder, significantly reducing laceration injuries but it was an expensive glass to make and ceased production, I did see a film of one of these screens, placed on a frame and a man bouncing on it without it breaking.
screenman
Senior Member
Posts: 3192
Joined: February 25th, 2004, 1:44 pm
Enter the middle number please (3): 5
Location: uk Lincolnshire
Contact:

Re: What do you know about hardened glass

Post by screenman »

Good to see you back glasseye, your post informative as always.
Glasseye
Member
Posts: 380
Joined: March 7th, 2006, 12:41 pm
Enter the middle number please (3): 5
Location: England, Staffordshire
Contact:

Re: What do you know about hardened glass

Post by Glasseye »

Thanks Graham, past 12 months has been a case of annus horribilis but things are better now.
screenman
Senior Member
Posts: 3192
Joined: February 25th, 2004, 1:44 pm
Enter the middle number please (3): 5
Location: uk Lincolnshire
Contact:

Re: What do you know about hardened glass

Post by screenman »

Let us all hope things continue to improve for you, your knowledge is a huge asset to the forum.
User avatar
Brent Deines
Moderator
Posts: 2449
Joined: September 24th, 2003, 7:54 am
Enter the middle number please (3): 5
Location: Eugene, OR
Contact:

Re: What do you know about hardened glass

Post by Brent Deines »

I was just told the Gorilla glass is actually only being used on the inner lites of of the windshield, not the outer. This should not have any effect on windshield repairs.
Brent Deines
Delta Kits, Inc.
Image
Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 42 guests