Windshield Chip and Crack Repair

Windshield chip repair typically runs about $75 to $175, takes about half an hour, and is usually less than a comprehensive deductible. That is a common range for the work, not a quote for your car. The whole point is to stop a small break before it runs into a crack, because a crack is what turns a $90 job into a replacement.

Most of the chips around here come off the Broken Arrow Expressway and the Creek Turnpike. Oklahoma law, 47 O.S. 14-105, says a truck hauling sand or other loose material has to keep the load covered. Gravel still comes off tailgates, tires and mud flaps, and one stone at seventy miles an hour is enough.

Repair works when the damage is small and out of the driver’s line of sight: a chip under about a quarter, a crack under about six inches, outside the wiper sweep in front of the driver. Past that, windshield replacement is usually the answer. And unless you carry a full-glass endorsement, a chip is not worth an insurance claim. The auto glass insurance claims page explains why.

What can be repaired and what cannot

The trade rule of thumb. Nobody can confirm it from a phone description, so expect someone to look at it.

Usually repairable. A bullseye, star or combination break smaller than about a quarter. A crack under roughly six inches. Damage sitting outside the driver’s critical viewing area. Damage that has not reached the edge of the glass.

Usually not. Anything sitting in the driver’s critical area, because even a good repair leaves a faint distortion and that is the one place you do not want one. Cracks that run to the edge, because the edge is where the glass carries load. Anything longer than about six inches. Damage that has been contaminated with dirt and water for months, which stops resin bonding properly.

The critical area is the part of the glass swept by the driver’s side wiper. That is the zone Oklahoma law uses for its size limits, and it is the zone where a repair should not go.

What Oklahoma law actually says

People ask whether a cracked windshield is illegal here. The statute is more specific than most people expect, and it names sizes.

The law is 47 O.S. 12-404. It defines the critical area as the area cleaned by the normal sweep of the driver’s side wiper blade. Then subsection B says no one may operate a vehicle that has:

• Any outright breakage in the windshield or in the window on either side of the driver, meaning glass cracked through so air passes, or so it moves or has sharp edges under a fingertip
• A star break or shot damage 3 inches or more across, in the critical area
• Two or more stress or hairline cracks totaling 12 inches or more, in the critical area

A small chip low on the passenger side is outside all of those. The same chip in front of the driver, left to grow past three inches, is not. That is one more reason to fix a chip while it is still small.

The statute limits driving the vehicle. It does not spell out how it gets enforced, so read it as the line the law draws rather than a prediction of what happens at a traffic stop.

Hail chips are a different problem

Hail arrives on a schedule. Oklahoma ranks third nationally for hail-related auto claim frequency, and Tulsa’s peak months are April and May. A hail chip is rarely alone, and if you have a dozen pits across the glass, that is a hail damage conversation rather than a repair one.

What the repair actually involves

The break gets cleaned out, the air pulled out of it under vacuum, clear resin pushed into the cavity under pressure and cured with ultraviolet light, then the surface is scraped and polished flat.

Total time is about thirty minutes. You can drive immediately afterwards, unlike a replacement, because nothing structural has been disturbed.

What it does is restore most of the strength and stop the break spreading. What it does not do is make the damage vanish. Expect a faint mark where an obvious white star used to be. Anyone promising it will be invisible is overselling it.

Do not bother filing a claim for this

A chip repair typically runs about $75 to $175. Most comprehensive deductibles are higher than that.

Filing a claim for a $90 repair means paying the whole thing yourself anyway and putting a comprehensive claim on your record for nothing. If your carrier sold you a full-glass endorsement, that is different and worth using. Otherwise just pay for it.

When a repair is the wrong call

If there are more than three chips. At some point repairs stop being economical and start being a patchwork.

If it is in the critical area. A faint distortion directly in the driver’s sightline is worse than the chip was.

If it has already run past six inches. The resin will not hold a long crack under flex.

If the glass is delaminating, meaning the inner and outer layers are separating and it looks cloudy or milky around the damage. Resin cannot fix that.

When the small job will do, it is the better deal. When it will not, a replacement is cheaper than a repair that fails in a month. Call and describe where the chip sits and how big it is, and you will know which one you are looking at before anyone comes out.

What matters for this in Broken Arrow

• Oklahoma law, 47 O.S. 14-105, requires any vehicle loaded with sand, cinders or other loose material that can blow or escape to have the load covered, and bars driving on a highway with a load that can drop, sift, leak or blow off.
• Under 47 O.S. 12-404(B), no one may operate a vehicle with outright breakage in the windshield or the window on either side of the driver, a star break or shot damage 3 inches or more across in the critical area, or two or more stress or hairline cracks totaling 12 inches or more in the critical area.
• The statute defines the critical area as the area cleaned by the normal sweep of the windshield wiper blade on the driver's side, and bars reducing that wiper coverage below the manufacturer's original specification.
• Trade convention is that a chip smaller than roughly a quarter, or a crack shorter than roughly six inches, sitting outside the driver's critical area, can usually be resin repaired, and that repairs take about 30 minutes.
• Oklahoma ranks third among US states for hail-related automotive claim frequency at 18.4 across 2008 to 2014, and Tulsa's hail peaks in April at a 64 percent monthly chance and May at 57 percent measured over 1950 to 1997.

Common questions