Bugger.

Whilst making steady progress along the A13 this morning I past one of those annoying cement mixers. With a clear lane distance between myself and the rolling nightmare, a rogue stone got through my defences and chipped the window.

Do you guys leave this till they accrue or have them done straight away? Any good recommendations for fitters?

Good job I had the top down, so I was still in a mood when I arrived at work.

Often.

 

If the chip isn't too bad, try Glasweld (Not sure on the spelling) They're a national concern I think, there must be others. They'll come out to you and do a resin repair which is all but invisible and usually charge in the region of about

 

Check your insurance. I think most of them will allow you to get the chip repaired for free. I had a number of chips in my windscreen repaired when I had my car serviced at no cost.

 

As some of the southern convoy to the supermeet will remember I picked up a nasty chip going from Fleet to Reading Services
Driving behind Keith when a large stone came up, hit my screen, then hit a couple of cars behind as well - would prefer to have it hit my screen than the body work, much cheaper to repair.
I am going to get the screen changed on my insurance -

 

yeah, i had the same recently.

 

I personally think that driving with the hood down but windows up looks ridiculous. What are the chances of a stone chip getting you in the face when driving with the windows down? Anybody out there been hit b4?

Isabelle

 

Funny you should ask that (but I quite agree that the car looks pretty pants top down and windows up - Cedric describes it very well as looking like a Triumph Stag ) as there is a thread on this very thing on the Aus forum: Aus thread , they've had all sorts come into the cabin, sometimes maliciously

 

I tend to put the windows up now, a few months back i saw a large stone fly up from the car infront, it kind of swung out to the right then curled in sharply and took a chunck out of the windscreen, if i were going a mph quicker i'm shure it would have hit me!

 

I think its very unlikely that you'll get hit by a stonechip even with the windows are down. The windscreeen gets the most damage as the airflow is directed onto and around it. Using my knowledge of simple mechanics, it would be significantly more unlikely for the chip to go in thru the window. The only way it could do so is thru direct entry, which is highly unlikely in a moving car.

i.e. its a lot easier to hit a car travelling in the same direction of projectile release at abt 80mph than it is to hit it when its travelling perpendicular to the line of projectile motion.

(this is based on the assumption that stonechips that are thrown up are directed 180 degrees to the direction of travel)

TBC

 

The worst I have had enter the car while driving top down was some muddy water

As I entered the works car park there was a large pool of water, caused by a burst water pipe. I slowed down but obviously not enough. What I didn't realise until later was that water from my nearside front wheel had struck the kerb and bounced back liberally spraying the side of the car and the passenger seat (no one in it at the time).

Thankfully there was no damage done.

On the question of whether you should drive with windows up or not. If I am alone in the car I always have the windows down. a) the car looks better and b) you get much more of a breeze in the car. If Trisha is with me she prefers the windows up when travelling at speed, say above 40mph because of the breeze. But she always puts them down when we get into town.