Cracked windshield repair?

Hi,

I have a 12inch crack on my 2006 windshield, running from the left side across the wheel.
It's slowly growing.

At some point I will have to change the windshield, but I saw some bad story about that type of operation here.

I'm not in any rush, just planing out.

What should I look out for? For instance are OEM windshield ok? What should I ask the shop to pay specific attention to?

I will have to drive from Louisiana to the west coast soonish, if you have a good repair place in mind on that road, I would take the recommendation.

Thanks

If you are handy with this sort of thing you can drill stop the crack and then use a couple of Rain-X resin injectors to fill in the crack. It might fix it well enought that you can live with it. If it doesn't, well you are just out 20-30$.

rollerbearing said:

I've just been fixing mine lately. Figure there is not much to lose by trying. The rain x repair kit at walmart runs about $10 and works pretty darn well. Stars and bullseyes are easy. I drill stop longer cracks with a diamond dremel bit from harbor freight. The rain x injector will push the uv cement 2-3 inches into the crack on either side of injector. For longer cracks buy more injectors and just place them along its length with one at each drill stop end. Youtube has plenty of glass repair videos loaded with little tricks -especially the drill stopping part. The repairs are not perfect but I find myself forgetting they are there and the little cracks don't wind up running all they way across the windshield. On my 2015, have so far fixed two nasty bullseyes right in my front vision field and one 8 inch crack. I've lost count how many repairs I've done to my wife's toyota sienna and can't see/find them all to count them!

Click to expand...

You'll want one injector over the drill stop. You can start there - let it fill the crack as far as possible and then let the sun UV set it up. Then move the injector on the crack where the glue didn't get to. It's possible to "stitch" it up this way.

My main motivation is preventing someone messing with the factory windshield seal as long as possible.

Call the mercedes dealer closest to you and ask who they use for glass, most likely the glass shop with the most experience with your 2006. My neighbor even had the recommended glass guy pull it on a thursday and replace it on a monday so he could treat his rust...

Don't you guys have glass coverage or is that just an AZ thing? I know it isnt the same in CO. If I want new glass I just call the ins company and they let me choose the company and schedule it for zero out of pocket.

Keeping the OG seal and repairing the glass with whatever cobbled together plan to prevent a few water drops inside the windshield is overthinking it in my book, its just a car.... But again, AZ glass coverage is $50/year

Do you have glass replacement as part of your insurance? I pay $100 for any glass replacement through mine, has come in handy 3 times now. I don't know who made the replacement windshield but I haven't had an issue with it, I do however have rust issues that I need to treat very soon. I'm all for diy pretty much everything, except this...

Edit: as az says above, definitely recommend treating any rust if it's present while you have the opportunity...

Try Rollerbearing's suggestion first.

Jantoine said:

Hi,



I have a 12inch crack on my 2006 windshield, running from the left side across the wheel.

It's slowly growing.



At some point I will have to change the windshield, but I saw some bad story about that type of operation here.



I'm not in any rush, just planing out.



What should I look out for? For instance are OEM windshield ok? What should I ask the shop to pay specific attention to?



I will have to drive from Louisiana to the west coast soonish, if you have a good repair place in mind on that road, I would take the recommendation.



Thanks

Click to expand...

There are some junk windshield out there. PGW is not recommended. Pilkington has been very good. They Supply much of the glass for the Auto industry. Nothing seems to fit as well as the factory original though. Now the biggest difference is finding qualified installers that won't hack job by cutting through the paint without sealing it back. A bad installer can create leaks wind noise and rust in your vehicle, and even electrical problems and ruined headliners from leaks for not doing it right. Unfortunately, there are very few good installers. Get some recommendations from body shops around you.

Barry

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk

With all the history of hidden cancer around the rim of the windshield glass, you will be better served getting the old glass out, and the sooner the better.

My 06 had a couple of very small, barely detectable rust bubbles. When the cracked windshield was removed, the whole frame had rust around most of the windshield frame. Fortunately none of rust had grown to the point that there were any holes that needed to be welded.

A local bodyshop removed all of the rust down to bare metal, sprayed several coats of primer, followed by a couple coats of matching paint, and finally with a few coats of clear sealer.

This was several years ago and I now have some very small bubbling on both sides of the top corners. I am about to paint on some gray colored Herculiner bedliner for a one time fix and will be sure to sand down and primer these bubble areas before the bedliner goes on.

My bodyshop made it clear that there is no warranty against rust coming back. Our vans are notorious for rusting. About the only lasting solution appears to be bedliner.

The longer you wait to replace your windshield, the more you will have to deal with. This past week I saw much the same at the Sprinter Pit Stop off Miramar Rd in San Diego. They had one with the windshield out being painted with some black colored material which could have been POR15. This seems to be the nest choice for dealing with rust and not having it come back. I highly recommend the Sprinter Pit Stop in the San Diego area for anything Sprinter van related.

I have had very good luck with glass repair kits. I don't stop drill usually, not unless you have the right diamond tipped burr. With good resin penetration, the crack will not grow. I fixed a 20" crack in my jetta windshield, still good 5 years later.

Main reason I drill stop now is that pushing the injector bridge suction cups on often presses the glass hard enough to make the crack grow. Glueing the end of the crack first and then installing the bridge may avoid this. You can try to let the resin wick in from the bottle tip as described in the Rain X kit. Otherwise, try to be gentle as you can.

Not that anyone asked....
Generally a windshield crack which crosses the driver's field of view can earn the operator a ticket, or at the least an unwanted traffic stop where maybe other things are discovered. If any repair attempt doesn't make the crack completely disappear, it's probably best to replace the glass sooner vs later.

vic

Getting ready to do mine again, 5th one since new, need to have it pulled & rust repair done. The one in there is a replacement where they screwed it up & didn't seal it . Lucky for me its cracked again , so not just doing it for rust fix . Make sure who ever does your repair they take their time , check for rust & scratches fix it right .