[00N]

I seen a tiny little crack, smaller than a 5p coin on my windscreen. I have co-op insurance, and I have windscreen cover with it. Will getting it repaired affect my insurance in any way, like will my insurance go up next year or something? And how do I go about getting it repaired?

[sam.hunton]

No, but you will have to pay the excess. You need to call your insurer.

[Joinedup]

Well i don't know what it says on your policy... But usually there's no excess on windscreen repairs (where they bung it up with clear adhesive) if you've got windscreen cover.

You can just drive into one of the auto glass chains listed on your insurance docs and they'll talk to the insurance company. It's very straightforward.

[JC.]

If it really is that tiny I'd just ignore it.
All the scare mongering adverts you see on the TV are nonsense.

I've had plenty of cars with chipped and cracked screens and not one has got worse.

[Joinedup]

(Original post by JC.)
If it really is that tiny I'd just ignore it.
All the scare mongering adverts you see on the TV are nonsense.

I've had plenty of cars with chipped and cracked screens and not one has got worse.

isn't it an mot fail if it's in the area swept by the wipers? Having said that i've had a small crack for several years that no one's picked up on. If it was right in front of my face i'd probably do something about it I suppose.

[JC.]

(Original post by Joinedup)
isn't it an mot fail if it's in the area swept by the wipers? Having said that i've had a small crack for several years that no one's picked up on. If it was right in front of my face i'd probably do something about it I suppose.

Depends where it is on the screen and what size.

It's 10mm in the area imediately in front of the driver - the tester has a piece of plastic that they lay on the screen in line with the centre of the steering wheel.

Imagine a two lines drawn from top to bottom of the windscreen roughly the width of the steering wheel. In this zone as mentioned damage up to 10mm in size is permitted.
Outside of this zone damage of up to 40mm is permitted.

Only if damage exceeds these parameters then are you required to repair or replace a screen.
However, that comes with the caveat if there are many little cracks in a confined area then this will constitute a failure. e.g if you had 10 little 5mm cracks close together in the zone imediately infront of the driver this would constitute a fail also.

[sebastienlewis]

I read it as got a tiny 'cock' on my windscreen.

[gbduo]

My windscreen looks like it has been sand blasted with the number of chips in it. Its been like that for years, through many winters and still no Autoglass crack over a sudden bump.

[JC.]

(Original post by gbduo)
My windscreen looks like it has been sand blasted with the number of chips in it. Its been like that for years, through many winters and still no Autoglass crack over a sudden bump.

Similarly I used to have a volvo with a 35 mm crack in the screen - so just MOT worthy.
15k miles of heavy abuse (read thrashed every day, every gear change) and no change to the crack at all.

[rmhumphries]

While I agree with the people saying it is unlikely you need to bother, check your insurance documents, quite a few insurers offer free windscreen repairs with no affect on your NCB / no excess / etc; if it is free and no negative effects, you have nothing to lose by getting it sorted.

[Lfctv]

Come on phone autoglass, dont u hear there annoying adverts

[xsophx]

My windscreen cracked when it was a very cold snowy morning, kept getting bigger and bigger. My insurance covered the cost of the windscreen so only cost me my excess. I found out that the cracked was caused by a chip that you couldn't see as it was near the bottom of the windscreen.

[gbduo]

(Original post by rmhumphries)
While I agree with the people saying it is unlikely you need to bother, check your insurance documents, quite a few insurers offer free windscreen repairs with no affect on your NCB / no excess / etc; if it is free and no negative effects, you have nothing to lose by getting it sorted.

I did, and they said there were too many chips and I would need a replacement windscreen. Well I wasn't going to pay £70 on my excess and have a windscreen claim and I am still running around with the same windscreen 2 and bit years on.

So yeh, unless it is an MOT failure, there is no way I am paying to get a screen replaced over a few chips!

If it is one or two then fair enough, but if you have more and they say they want to replace, forgot it, wait until it properly goes.

[Salu.]

Bloody hell mate, it's only a little crack. Why bother with insurance? Get it fixed by Autoglass. If you're fully comp then it's free isn't it?

[rmhumphries]

(Original post by Salu.)
Bloody hell mate, it's only a little crack. Why bother with insurance? Get it fixed by Autoglass. If you're fully comp then it's free isn't it?

Autoglass get the money to repair it from your insurer.

[tehforum]

I thought this was a joke thread commenting on the influence of the Autoglass adverts.