DIY windscreen chip repair

[christhompson]

I've just received another stone chip in the passenger side of the windscreen. Earlier ones have been repaired by a previous owner. I'm in France and the local windscreen place wants to charge me €180 to repair the chip:mad: and worse €980 to replace the screen:mad::mad:. As it will cost around £250 for the return trip to UK to have it done either under insurance or at a fraction of the French price research shows me this

http://www.frost.co.uk/item_Detail.asp?productID=8101&frostProductName=Glass%20Chip%20Repair%20Kit

Does anyone know if these things work - i.e. stop my windscreen cracking from the chip in extreme weather. At the price, and for the passenger side it seems like a reasonable way forward.

[Conan_the_Librarian]

never used the kit; but thanks for the link. I tjink your options are:
DIY with the kit - if it don't work move onto option 2
come to UK and get new windscreen on insurance - £250 + £60.
get 2nd hand screen and pay to have it fitted.

[Singh]

I used to do winscreen chip repair a few years ago in the summer holidays, its big business.
You may have seen the FREE windscreen chip repair canopies dotted around the UK? What actually happens is you take your car to get the chip repair done, then they charge your insurance company. Your insurance company would rather pay us £80-100 to repair the chip rather then pay for a new screen later on when it cracks because of the chip. It wont effect your no claims or premiums.

Anyway, to the point. Depending on the chip it sometime does work and I've sometimes had some great results but the majority of the time I thought it was a big con. By all means, give it a go but don't expect it to disappear completely.

[notorious]

christhompson,

If it's just a chip without cracks (basically, a small crater), I would go for kit. If you can see at least one small crack around chip crater, then I'd shell out 180 euro since crack can start to develop into larger crack any moment.

The way crack repaired professionally, they suck out air from around the crack by ataching electrical suction device around the chip which create vacuum and then pour glue/resin on the crack under vacuum and then release vacuum, so that glue gets into the crack under air pressue. This prevents crack from developing further. I don't think it is possibe with cheap kit.

[christhompson]

Many thanks for the feedback. I've decided to have a go but using the system from
http://crackattack.co.uk/
which has a video howto that makes me believe I can do it. They also respond very fast to emails and promise that delivery to France is the same price as UK. Seems very fair to me.

I reckon I'll have a little scratch about to clear any loose glass, use an old electric toothbrush head to give it a gentle scrub, and a dental irrigator [water jet] for a thorough clean and then a hair dryer on cold to dry it out thoroughly. I'll try and enlist my navigator to take piccys!
Wish me luck!