Do over the counter windshield chip repair products work?
I don’t know about the effectiveness of OTC products for this purpose–especially when used by those of us who are not trained in this type of process.
Since companies like Safelite do not charge very much for their services, and since most insurance companies will reimburse you fully for that type of professional service–Why would you want to do it yourself?
I only have liability coverage.
It depends on the crack, the conditions (temperature, humidity, etc.), and whether you follow the directions.
Just the word ‘crack’ says it’s more than just a chip.
Most of those repairs need the chip to extremely small to do any good.
Even the pros have told me NO when my chip had a 1/2" crack crawling away from it.
These products are just a glue that works as well as it can.
What we usually see is the glue IS holding where it was put BUT cracks slowly begin to progress away from the glued point from flex stress and tempuratures.
S’pose it’s worth a try at least.
I tried it on a chip once and had trouble getting it to cure with artificial sunlight in the winter, so I wasn’t satisfied. I don’t think it’ll work on a crack though.
I had a crack and it worked great…but I didn’t do it…A windshield repair shop did (it was covered by my insurance company). But they had to drill 2 holes in the crack to be able to get the polymer in correctly.
The OTC remedies work well if you use them for what they were designed for. Mostly this is the “bullseye” chip, the package should have pictures of the sorts of repairs they can fix.
That being said the last time I had a windshield chip I took it in to the glass place and they fixed it for $25. Even if I had only liability coverage that’s not too big of a chunk for me and it got fixed well.
The problem with a crack is that the terminating point is an extremely high stress concentration area.It’s called a “stress riser”. The holes that Mike mentioned are actually at the ends of the crack to distribute the stress and eliminate the “stress riser”, allowing the crack to stop propogating.
You’ll not do a successful repair on a crack with an OTC product. You need to drill the termination hole and heat the glass to expand the crack and draw the adhesive into it.
Thankyou all for your help.