WOE is you. You are driving on your way to work when a stone, lodged in one of the tyres of the car in front comes off, does a ditty on the asphalt and flies straight into your windscreen. Wham!
Like an ice block that has been pick-axed, a bull's eye shows up. Chances are you think you are staring at a RM300 to a RM1,000 tab to have the windscreen replaced.
Not necessarily. It can actually be repaired for far less if the damage is not too serious.
Contrary to popular belief, lorries carrying stones are not the chief cause of such mishaps, says Yeoh Eng Hui of Glass Mechanic, one of a handful of established windscreen repairers in the country.
It's the stones and pebbles stuck in the recesses of tyres that are the main culprits as they are spit out and cause random damage.
Only laminated glasses - with a plastic membrane in the middle layer to prevent shattering - can be repaired. Tempered glass, as used on windows, must be replaced if damaged.
Windscreen damage can be classified by the shape made: bull's eye, stars, half-moon, combination, cracks and stone chips.
After the repair, the windscreen is restored to its original strength but cosmetically the damage will leave a faint mark that is only visible if you look really hard.
"When glass breaks, a lot of the damage is internal. The glass becomes fine powder at the impact point. It's this point that will usually leave a mark behind," Yeoh explains.
Restoration can only promise a surface appearance that is 90-98% as good as before.
The advantage of repairing a windscreen is that you save money, the repaired section does not reflect light any more and the wipers won't be damaged after the surface is patched up and polished.
Replacing a windscreen - when it can be repaired - may offer a false sense of security.
It takes 1,500psi to remove a factory-fitted windscreen from the car body. The frame-glass attachment is strong enough to hold up the roof if the car turns turtle or stops a person from being ejected in a collision.
It takes far less force to knock down a windscreen that had been replaced by aftermarket installers working in an open and uncontrolled environment. Worst still is when the windscreen is seated in surrounds that have rusted and weakened over the years, offering reduced protection in an impact.
Next to seatbelts and airbags, the windscreen offers a third line of safety in a collision. It stops a person from flying out into certain death, says Yeoh.
Glass Mechanic, which started offering its repair service over four years ago from its Petaling Jaya outlet, has seen a growing number of insurers, fleet operators and motorists subscribing to its services.
It follows the US practice of assessing what is a minor or major break. A break less than 2.54cm in diameter can be repaired; so can a crack not more than 15.2cm long.
Glass Mechanic will advise a change of glass if it finds that a repair is not possible. It uses a repair kit sourced from a Las Vegas company that specialises in the business.
Resins of varying viscosity are used for different types of breaks. The thinnest has viscosity of 15-20cps versus the thickest at 1,600-2,200cps.
For spot breaks, the damaged section is vacuumed to extract the air before a clear resin is pumped into the glass. Vacuuming is vital or else air bubbles will form.
No vacuuming is required in patching a crack, which is like an open drain but the application of the resin is more time-consuming because of the larger surface area involved and the need to allow the resin to flow in and fill the crack.
The resins are then left to cure for a few minutes under UV light. The treatment is fast, taking 30 minutes to a little over an hour to wrap up and a lifetime warranty is offered on each job.
A bull's eye typically means shelling out RM110-120 to fix. Cracks cost more as they require more time. .
While most windscreen damage is at the front and from outside, the damage can also be inflicted from inside, such as when a child is playing the fool in the front seat and slams his head into the glass, causing weird-looking breaks without an impact point. Such damage, akin to a volcanic eruption, cannot be repaired, according to Yeoh.
Yeoh, himself a qualified repairer, has two full-time technicians to assist him.
The service is also mobile. So if you can't go to Glass Mechanic, it will come to you.
