Anyone ever check up on an old repair?

[dnkies]

Hey All,

I was just wondering if any of you ever check on old (1 year) repairs you have done? I often run into old repairs on windshields and more often than not, they are rough and the pit resin has yellowed and the edges seem to be rough as if the pit resin is about to fall out....I used to think that my competitor must have been using poor quality materials, but today I saw an old repair of mine (1.5 years) and the pit resin had yellowed and it was nowhere near as smooth as I had left it when I originally did the repair. Yes I use Delta and yes I used pit polish and yes it was a very good repair. The repair itself still looked good, it was just the pit resin.

I want to know if pit resin just breaks down over time or did I do something wrong when I initially did the repair? I really hope that our repairs are longer lasting than just a couple years....

Any info would be great!

Thanks

[candyman]

Most of the articles I've read states that cheap resin will yellow. The products Iam using from DK are not suppose to yellow for the life of the repair or for as long as the owner has the vehicle. If you are seeing this with DK products contact Brent, Korey or Bruce. I repaired my own ws 3 years ago and there has been no change.

[screenman]

80% of the work I do is on fleet vehicles so yes I do check, as I work on the same windshields time and again. I can honestly say my repairs do last and always have done. Cheap resin is sometimes a problem with failing repairs, poor workmanship is a bigger one though.

Using heat and not cooling is a big reason for failure of the inside of the damage. The pit failure we have found is often due to poor pit preparation, pit fill resin has better weathering characteristics than normal resin, however if the pit is full of resin when you place the pit fill on all you will do is scrape it off afterwards.

I have just realised that looks like I am calling the OP, apologies for that, it was not my intention.

Over here we have many guys using quality resins turning out extremely poor jobs, none of the large companies use dry out systems or UV shields so we see more failed repair than we should.

Remember this great little line, "most of our work goes unnoticed"

[Brent Deines]

A good windshield repair resin will give you a flat, smooth hard acrylic finish. How hard and how weather resistant a resin is depends on the shore hardness of the cured product as well as the proper prep, application and curing of the resin. Curing under pressure and not curing thoroughly can cause problems as can the things screenman mentioned. However, there is more too it than that.

Even the best of resins are more subject to weather and weathering than the glass around it because the acrylic is not as hard as glass, so how the vehicle is cared for plays a part in how well the resin holds up on the surface. The climate, where the damage is located on the windshield, and the size of the pit are also factors. For instance, we purchased a new vehicle in 2002 and within a month or two got a medium sized star break with an 1/8" pit in the windshield. The damage was located low on the glass out of the wiper sweep. One of my sales reps was driving it at the time so he repaired it immediately. It's now been 10 years and over 100,000 miles since that happened and the repair still looks great (No yellowing or surface deterioration. This vehicle is garaged every night, washed every couple of weeks (automatic car wash), detailed every year or two, is parked outside every day and is driven every day. We get lots of rain in Oregon, but little snow (not much sand or gravel on the roads), little sun, and mild temperatures. By the way, the headlights still look like new as well.

Now, take that same vehicle, but leave it parked outside 24/7, drive it twice as many miles, never wash it, never detail it, subject it to year after year of Arizona sunshine or Colorado temperature extremes and the repair will no doubt show signs of aging in far less than 10 years. If the damage is in the wiper sweep, the pit is 1/4" in diameter, and it was old damage with contamination, the deterioration will be even more noticeable.

My point is that just like the headlights, plastic trim, or even the paint on your vehicle, how good a completed repair looks at any given time will be largely dependent on a number of variables, only one of which is the quality of the resin. Having worked fleet accounts for many years I have often had the opportunity to evaluate my completed repairs month after month, year after year. Most look great for several years, but a few will show signs of aging within a year or two. Some of the over the road trucks I worked on traveled 100,000+ miles a year through all kinds of weather conditions. That kind of abuse takes it's toll on every part of the vehicle.

Not to beat a dead horse but I think how much the headlights deteriorate in a given period of time is a good indicator of how much a good pit resin will deteriorate on the surface of a good repair. I have 2001, 2002 and 2005 vehicles that all have headlights that look like new but I see the same year, make and model of vehicle with terrible headlights all the time. Lots of variables to consider!