Feck!! Rock cracked windshield! How best to fix?

if it is a newer vehicle with a glued in windshield, your best bet is just to drive by a glass shop and let them have a look at it. They'll be able to tell you whether it can be repaired or if it can be replaced.

If it has the old style windshield that just floats in a gasket, you can replace it yourself if you can find a good piece of glass in a junkyard.

nate

I've actually had good luck with the windshield crack-filler kits you can buy at the parts stores. Or you can get a professional to do it with slightly better equipment- they used to offer it at the local Genie car washes, I don't know where I'd go to actually look for such a service but they are out there.

Worst case for trying the filler- you're out $10 (kit) or $30 (having it done) and you still decide to replace the windshield.

Oops sorry...didn't give enough info...

Its a 2000 Mazda Protege ES with 153k miles on it. So its getting up there in years and miles!!

Local auto body shop said it would cost $208 for new glass

BUT....car also needs $500 worth new tires and new cat converter or O2 sensors.....

So to get the new glass and above repairs done looks like abt a $1200 investment overall. Just not sure if putting that kind of money into it is wise given its age and miles

Ok thanks I'm gonna give that a try!!

What the heck its only $15 for the kit..... what's to lose if it doesn't work well.

Hmmm... $1200 to get it back to Good. That's what, three or four car payments?

How much would you end up spending if you replaced the car?

snipped-for-privacy@privacy.net wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

What's to lose is that you may muck the job up. And once you do that, the glass places won't be able to salvage it, and then you're definitely faced with a replacement.

Pay $60 to an auto glass place to do their professional resin-fill repair. If the crack hasn't spread far before the fix, this will be a permanent fix, and will be just about invisible. I've had this done several times to a variety of cars with 100% success. Highly recommended. Get it done immediately. The longer you wait, the more the crack will spread.

By the way, it's highly unlikely the auto body shop you went even does glass. Most likely all they would do is farm the job out to a glass place and resell it to you.

For a perfect repair you've gotta keep all traces of dirt and and moisture out of the cracked area until it's been filled... it pays to cover it immediately after the damage occurs.

Pro repairers will usually supply transparent cover patches for the purpose.

We had one the size of a silver dollar in our two day old windshield so had it 'patched' at the replacement place. It held for more than 7 years up here in Canada with our hot defrost on frozen windshield shots.

Mike

Hey our 'northern' friend and Jeep expert! Maybe you could be a tad clearer--many of us may not be familiar with what a silver dollar looked like;). Luckily, I recall seeing, and actually trading with, them; however, my age clouds the precision of such long-ago memories;( sdlomi2

"sdlomi2" wrote in news:sbd7k.11943$ snipped-for-privacy@bignews3.bellsouth.net:

Long ago days, when coinage actually had some inherent value...

US: Inch-and-a-half in diameter; 65% silver (also known as a "cartwheel") Canada: Inch-and-three-eighths in diameter; 85% silver Both were really thick compared to lesser coins.

They were 90% silver.

Well, it's a little bigger than a Loonie and about the size of a Toonie....

Better?

Mike

OK thanks for the heads up!

Will do... thanks!

The glass shop may be able to use a vacuum applied sealer to stop the cracking. About $25.00 Otherwise you are faced with after-market glass as the cheapest alternative.

At 153K you should be replacing the windshield anyway due to pitting.