Windshield repair in Mount Pleasant, NC

Mount Pleasant and its two highways

Two state highways meet at Mount Pleasant. NC 73 comes east from downtown Concord, where it meets US 601 and NC 3, passes through the town, and connects to NC 49 by an interchange before it heads on into Stanly County. NC 49 crosses Cabarrus County from Charlotte, and past Mount Pleasant it becomes a designated North Carolina Scenic Byway toward Stanly County.

Highways like these mean long runs behind trucks and farm loads, at highway speed, on roads where gravel and grit collect at the edges. A stone that comes off a tire on NC 49 or NC 73 is the most common start of a chip.

North Carolina treats loose stone as a hazard. G.S. 20-116(g) requires trucks over 7,500 pounds carrying rock, gravel or stone to keep the load six inches below the sides and covered with a tarp. If a load in front of you is shedding stone, dropping back is the simplest windshield protection there is.

Is the chip repairable?

Impex says a repair may be possible when a chip or crack is small, shallow and away from the edges of the glass, and uses a quarter as a rule of thumb for chips. The ROLAGS repair standard lists stone breaks up to two inches across and single line cracks up to 14 inches as repairable, and defines an edge crack as one that reaches an edge, which usually means replacement. A chip right in front of the driver is often better replaced, because even a good repair leaves a faint mark.

The chip	Likely answer
Smaller than a quarter, away from the edge	Repair
A short crack, six inches or less	Often a repair
Reaching the edge of the glass	New windshield
Right in the driver’s line of sight	Usually a new windshield

Repair it before it runs

A chip is a weak point, and glass moves with heat and cold. A car parked in the sun all afternoon, then cooled fast by the air conditioning, or a frosty morning with the defroster on full, puts stress on the edges of the chip. So do bumps and doors closed hard. Until the van arrives, cover the chip with clear tape, keep the defroster and the air off the glass and skip the car wash.

How the repair is done at your car

The technician cleans the break, fixes a tool over it, draws the air out and fills the chip with resin, then cures and polishes it level. Impex’s Concord page says a repair often takes less than 30 minutes. The full explanation is on windshield repair in Concord, NC. If the chip has already become a long crack, see windshield replacement in Concord, NC.

Paying for a chip repair

A chip is glass breakage, a comprehensive loss in North Carolina. Your comprehensive deductible applies unless your policy has full glass terms, so compare the deductible with the quote, and ask your insurer how it treats a repair. You choose who does the work under G.S. 58-3-180. See insurance and claims, and for the other towns the van covers, areas we serve.

Questions people ask