The south end of the beach at Hua Hin, Thailand.
Where are Kevin and Ruth now? Hua Hin, Thailand.

Where are Kevin and Ruth going next? Maldives on March 23rd.

Saturday, September 17, 2016

Windshield Crack Repair

I received the repair kit that I had ordered from CrackEraser.com.

To give you some background, our 1996 motorhome windshield comes in two pieces...a driver's side, and a passenger side. The passenger side had about a two foot long crack in it that's been there for about a year and a half. And the driver's side had about a one inch size chip in it...bigger than a quarter.

But the windshields cost over $600 per side, and we had no insurance coverage for that type of damage.

And, our 2006 car had about an 18" long crack on the driver's side. This windshield is relatively cheap, at around $300 to replace. But I figured I could practice on it prior to doing the motorhome windshields.

I read all of the instructions and watched the included video a couple of times to be sure that I understood the procedures. And, I did a lot of research on the internet to be sure that I understood the limitations of the product.

And that's very important. I think that many of the people who have left poor reviews on this product didn't completely understand what the product can and can't do.

Windshield Crack Repair isn't an exact science. And, there's a definite learning curve to using the product.

About an 18" long crack in the little blue car. Before.

After.


Taken from the inside. Before.

After.

So, there's no question that it's better than it was. But, it's far from perfect. For my first time using the kit, I'm reasonably satisfied with the result.

And, considering that this crack is on the larger end of the scale as far as what they say is possible, I'd say I did okay. Again, first time using it.

The kit advertising says that there is enough product included to repair 60 chips and 10 long cracks. Not sure that I'd agree with that because I think you tend to use too much product until you get an idea of how the device works. Seems there was an awfully lot of waste that went running down the windshield. It doesn't hurt anything...you just wipe it off...but, it is definitely wasted.

So given that, I was a little worried that I would actually run out of product while doing the motorhome chips and crack, so I didn't try and repair the two smaller chips in the car windshield.

Moving on to the motorhome...

This huge rock chip was right in the middle of the driver's view. 
It's larger than a quarter, about the size of a Canadian Loonie dollar coin!

The repair came out much better than I expected!

In fact, I don't think it could be repaired any better than that even by an experienced professional. Very happy with the way it came out, because it was a really bad one.

But then, I moved on to the big crack. 

Now, I had read that the longer you wait to repair a crack, the more chance that dirt gets inside the crack. And the more dirt that gets inside the crack, the more noticeable the repair will be.

And this crack had been there for almost a year and a half, and we drove the motorhome all the way to Mexico and back during that time. Lots of miles. And lots of dirt and dust.

So, I didn't have high expectations.

I forgot to take a "before" picture, so this one is from a year and a half ago...

The original crack. And it had grown another few inches since then...

Repaired? Not really that much better than it was before. But, still slightly better.

On both the car, and the motorhome long cracks, I had a hard time getting the material to fill the crack near the tip where it ends. Apparently the crack is very "tight" at that point, and you can actually buy a crack expanding tool, but again this takes some practice.

I think that if you can repair the crack when it happens, and if the crack is less than say 12 inches long that you have much better chance of success. And, for most most windshield chips, big or small, you will be satisfied with the end result.

The CrackEraser DIY kit is available through Amazon, in both the USA and Canada...


And in Canada...







18 comments:

  1. I'd say from the price of the kit, you not only did well, but got good value. Had a similar experience with buying a kit to recharge the near empty dash air in the RV we had. Much cheaper than taking it to a shop and it did the trick. If you want "perfect", your pockets need to be much deeper.

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    1. I love your last comment Bob, " If you want "perfect", your pockets need to be much deeper." Seeing we don't have deep pockets, it seems like this DIY kit and Kevin's hard work and patience has saved us some money. The repairs aren't perfect but they certainly are much better. We still have leftover product so if we get another chip or crack we can try doing the repair right away and see what kind of difference it will make.

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  2. Looks like a pretty good repair job and hopefully should stop the cracks and chips from getting worse.

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    1. We were hoping for a little better but considering that the cracks were old and had dirt in them, they turned out not bad. Definitely better than before.

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  3. At least if nothing else the cracks are not likely to get any bigger. We did the same on our truck 2 years ago and fortunately it has held up great.

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    1. We will keep our fingers crossed! Glad to hear that your repair has held up for two years so far, that's very encouraging.

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  4. I see you're using the pipe insulation trick on your wiper blades. When I'm parked for a couple of months I take the blades off and store them inside, and if I'm parked for a couple of weeks or less I put tennis balls under the arms to lift the blades off the glass. Keeping the blades off the glass prevents them from taking a set to one side or the other. The blades are still good after 6 years of New Mexico sun! Also, RainX makes the blades work much better and it's a lot easier to get bugs off.

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    1. We may have to try removing of the wipers when we put Sherman to rest for the winter, it certainly makes sense and keeps the wipes out of the elements.

      We use Rainx already, love that stuff! :-)

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  5. I think you did a great job, Kevin. Maybe you could earn a little bit of money doing this I the side. Hehehe

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    1. Funny that you said that because that is what some people end up doing with this product, they begin their own little business and do very well with it. Kevin says that it is a finicky job and he is afraid that people would have high expectations and not be happy with the outcome and we doesn't want that headache.

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  6. Replies
    1. He probably wouldn't try doing brain surgery! ;-)

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  7. It could actually cure a bit more once it is out in the sun for a day or two.

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    1. Perhaps but honestly we think this will be the best it will do on our old cracks!

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  8. thumbs up again!!! man you guys surely keep a great blog! this is a lot of work to keep up. thank you for all your hard work on your blog.

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    1. Thank you very much Diana! It does take lots of work but we also enjoy it and we are happy to help others out with whatever information we can pass along that can be of assistance.

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