[YG166]

I discovered a small, dime sized chip in my windshield today and went to O'Reilly's to buy a repair kit (resin+syringe types). I've done this before on other cars and the results were always great. The resin always filled in even the smallest cracks and dried perfectly clear. The first store I went to was sold out, and they checked a second store about 30 minutes away that had three in stock. I drove to the second store and they were also out.

Bear with me, this is when I made a phenomenally stupid mistake. Frustrated, I saw this booth in the parking lot that offered "professional" chip repairs. The techs were dressed nicely and they had a decent looking set-up so I figured it would be all right. They assured me that their resin would fill in all the cracks and dry clear. I paid them $20 and they did their work. The finished product looked like absolute garbage. The resin looked like it only blocked up the surface and did not seep into any of the cracks at all. It also dried as cloudy as frosted glass.

Am I completely screwed? Is there any way I could repair the windshield any further? I'm thinking of two possible solutions but I'm wondering if anyone can give me pointers. The first is to dremel out their resin carefully, then fill in my own, with the hope that my windshield won't spider any further. The second is to use some sort of chemical to dissolve the resin, then fill it with my own. Any suggestions? Thanks a lot for the help

[UncleWede]

Did you already check with your auto insurance carrier to see if they don't replace windshields for somewhere in the free to $100 range?

[Soul_Glo]

You can dremel it out carefully if you know what you are doing. If the repair is bad and has not filled the spider legs/cracks then it will fall to pieces and come off with little elbow grease.

Before the Dremel you can also try a heat gun. Now a couple of rules with this aside from safety... don't go overheating the glass and do not try to cool it with water immediately after the heat has been applied. Let it cool naturally. You only need enough heat to break free the el cheapo resin with a suitable tool. Once cooled you can use some acetone or similar to remove any resin residue. Then you need to clean the area with something else to prep it for the new resin.

A good man once told me... try to repair it out of direct sunlight if possible. UV light can interfere with the repair... and try to keep it around room temperature if possible. So an indoor repair is advised.

[YG166]

Yeah I checked with my insurance and no dice. Repairs are way more :[

Thank you for the advice, Broken_Gearbox. I do have a heat gun so I'll try that and acetone. I'll probably wash the acetone out with water, then let it dry completely before applying new resin.