Windshield Repair Forum

It's very difficult to properly assess damage from a photo. The angle you take the photo from, the lighting, and other variables can make a good repair appear to have not been properly filled or a poor repair look perfectly acceptable. As Roo pointed out, from one angle in your photo one of the cracks appeared to be filled but from another angle it did not appear to have any resin in it at all. I once made a video of a long crack repair and the crack filled perfectly, but from the angle of the camera it did not appear that any resin was flowing into the crack. Such is the nature of filming and photographing crack repair.

Repaired cracks will always be visible if the light hits them just right, and from some angles they will look better than others. So if they are still visible why repair cracks at all? The answer is; to keep the cracks from getting larger and avoid the time, cost, and safety concerns of a replacement. The cosmetic appearance should be improved significantly, but there will almost always be a visible scar.

From these photographs most of us would conclude that the repair was not successful and that the cracks could still be filled, but again, photographs can be deceptive so I don’t want to judge another technician’s work by a photograph. I would not normally drill a break like this, but since a repair has already been attempted, drilling would be necessary. Depending on how much resin the first technician got into the cracks it may be drilled and filled from the impact point, or it may be that the end of every leg would need to be drilled, in which case I would pass. It would work, but it would be ugly. I would have to see the break have to see the break personally before making those decisions.

Generally speaking a crack that has not been filled will appear dark and/or shiny, and be much more visible than a properly filled crack, which should appear clear or translucent. Again, the viewing angle and lighting have a lot to do with the appearance of a crack, but as a crack is filled the technician should see the resin flowing into the crack and should be able to tell when the crack is properly filled. The customer may not know enough about windshield repair to be able to tell if a crack has been properly filled with resin or not, but he should be able to see a significant difference between the unfilled crack and the repaired crack. I tell customers they will see an 80%+ cosmetic improvement which is typically a conservative estimate, but I believe it is better to under sell and over achieve.

Will the repaired damage be a distraction or annoyance to the driver? Even the best repairs may be a distraction if in the driver’s direct line of vision. I am careful to only do large repairs and long crack repairs that are far enough out of the driver’s direct line of sight that the driver is not bothered by any cosmetic imperfection that remains after the repair is completed.

I did a very volatile star break this week and failed to properly set the customer’s expectations. There were three star breaks on the glass and all of them full of water. One of my technicians dried the glass, pre-warmed it, and then used the moisture evaporator to dry out each break. The cracks on one of the breaks appeared to be about .5” long, but as the moisture was removed the cracks opened up and one of them was now about 1.2”. Did the crack grow or did removing the moisture reveal the true length? A case could be made for either argument, but in this case I think it may have been a bit of both.

Because the crack appeared to be so volatile I debated whether or not to drill the end, but since the damage was just below the DPVA I chose not to drill. The damage filled very nicely and when completed all that was visible were very faint lines where the cracks had been. The repair was successful and I would estimate the cosmetic improvement to be around 90%.

The customer was happy with the repair when he left with the vehicle, but a few hours later came back because he has parked in a spot where the light caught the repaired cracks just right and he could see them again. Worse yet, he could see that although barely visible, one of the cracks was twice as long as he remembered it. In his mind the crack was worse than when he brought it to me!

I explained that the crack had opened up when it was dried out but that it was properly filled and guaranteed not to crack out. Everything worked out fine, but the point is I could have avoided a lot of unnecessary confusion by properly explaining the repair process and possible issues that could affect the outcome.

To the untrained eye it is very difficult to tell if a crack has been repaired or not, especially if the break was full of water before the repair was started and the break was not closely inspected prior to the repair being completed.

Roo wrote:It is hard to tell by looking at pictures. If you look at first pic it appears the leg to the left is filled. Then in the second pic the same leg looks like it is not filled. The two legs on the right side don't look filled from either angle. Once again it is hard to tell from a picture. The true test will be to see if it ever spreads. If it does then it was an unsuccessful repair plain and simple.

I had a customer that had a similar looking repair on her windshield, she said it was repaired two years ago. I would have to say it wasn't the prettiest but it was doing the job.

the crack line do much more obvious from my driver side view esp during sunny day,which i cant avoid at time.

yes,i do have hard time capture the pics in all view to show here,but all i can said is,
no matter which angle i m viewing the crack from my eye view,is still appear pretty obvious to me

screenman wrote:I would like a couple of questions answered, the first being was the windshield washed just before the repair was started. Was the damage smaller before the repair was started.

hi sir

no,i did not wash the windshield at all.
is this a normal procedure to wash the windshield before we start doing repair on it?

as whether do the damage was smaller before repair?
i m sorry,i did not take note of the size of damage before asking them to do a repair on it.

but put it this way,as a customer view on this job done,it definitely look not much difference at all.

both before and after job done do still create unnecessary glare to the driver.

i do not know how the insurance market doing the claim for windshield over here,
but for my side here,any car driver will just need to pay about USD76.00 for a brand new windshield replacement per policy year.
while some insurance company do be able to make unlimited claim for windshield so long the driver pay the excess payment of USD76.00

so now,my biggest fear now is how do i convince the customer to do repair instead of claiming or replacing the whole windshield
if the above pics are the result of windshield after being repaired?

franky speaking,do most here do get this result while doing the repair?

thank you so much Brent Deines and maxryde for your value input.

well,at least for now here,i do learn something more about WSR.

so can i conclude that is still all boil down to the skill and knowledge of the technician.
cos no matter what,the crack line can still be seen and it depend on how many % is that visible to us,is that right?
another point is how many type of repair can we do on such crack?

said what if you are the technician for this job done,will you accept this as a job perfectly done?
what will you guys do if a return customer complain about it?
will you guys attempt a second repair mission on it?

friends in my car yesterday saw the crack line and give me their view to it.
they say the crack was not even properly done at all as they have done up on their previous ride before
but was nothing to even compare to mine,for such mine is the worst as they describe.

for such,laughter was all i got here from them.
"why i dont pay just a little bit more to have the whole brand new windshield replace instead?"
well,at least after this incident,it do get me more attention and interest to learn more about the art of WSR.

honestly speaking,i dont have any confident at all,but will try my best onto it.
hopefully i be able to get the kits in a weeks time if everything is confirm and try it out myself then.
for sure i be raining many questions in here and i do hope you guys here please have a little bit of patience in me
and do guide me along to learn more about the beauty and art of WSR.

till then guys.
have a great weekend everyone

The reason I asked about the washing of the screen is because I can see water marks all over it, this would lead me to think there was a lot of moisture in the damage prior to attempting to repair it, certainly from the pictures this looks the case. There are plenty of before and after pictures about to show you what should be achievable, the Delta videos also show good examples. To me that looks like a damage that has grown whilst trying to repair, that moisture was present and the person doing the repair was either not properly trained or had no determination to carry out a quality repair. I would not attempt a re-repair on this break as I would not be a happy with the end results on a car screen, I may do it on a large truck screen where the damage was out of sight.

I wish you luck with your venture, please make sure you have plenty of practise before you start attempting customers cars, the more practise you have the more confident you will be, nothing worse than making a mess of the first few paying jobs.

lorinser wrote:thank you so much Brent Deines and maxryde for your value input.

well,at least for now here,i do learn something more about WSR.

so can i conclude that is still all boil down to the skill and knowledge of the technician.
cos no matter what,the crack line can still be seen and it depend on how many % is that visible to us,is that right?
another point is how many type of repair can we do on such crack?

said what if you are the technician for this job done,will you accept this as a job perfectly done?
what will you guys do if a return customer complain about it?
will you guys attempt a second repair mission on it?

friends in my car yesterday saw the crack line and give me their view to it.
they say the crack was not even properly done at all as they have done up on their previous ride before
but was nothing to even compare to mine,for such mine is the worst as they describe.

for such,laughter was all i got here from them.
"why i dont pay just a little bit more to have the whole brand new windshield replace instead?"
well,at least after this incident,it do get me more attention and interest to learn more about the art of WSR.

honestly speaking,i dont have any confident at all,but will try my best onto it.
hopefully i be able to get the kits in a weeks time if everything is confirm and try it out myself then.
for sure i be raining many questions in here and i do hope you guys here please have a little bit of patience in me
and do guide me along to learn more about the beauty and art of WSR.

till then guys.
have a great weekend everyone

Yes lorinser your correct, knowledge and skill are going to have a lot to do with the results you get in the repair of cracks. While you will still see the damage viewed from certain angles, a good repair should appear as a hair on the glass. There should be no refraction from light.

Your question about complaining to the tech who did the repair, well if I were him I can only imagine that rather that return your $ he may attempt to further repair the shield. I would schedule a replacement before I would have a tech that did sloppy work attempt a re-repair, call it lack of trust.

I'm in agreement that all is not a total loss as you have received some valuable information concerning WSR and if you decide to delve into this industry it will have the effect of raising the bar for you making you a better tech in the long run. Screenman is correct that you must get some practice before doing retail work. Just take your time and do good work, the air must be removed and replaced with resin 100% to do good work. While there are other facets to repair this one is a must! He also spoke of moisture in the break and his point is valid as the moisture may fool a tech into thinking the void is filled, and it is, only half of it is water and that evaporates leaving an unfilled area, not to mention the fact that resin will not bond to moist glass, it's like oil and water so...

Good luck to you Lorinser, Scott AKA maxryde