Suction Cup Damage!

[shoppersplace]

I inspect taxi cabs here in NYC. I have seen a few cabs come in with a circular crack. Here's what I discovered.

Many drivers use a suction cup holder to affix their cell phone to the windshield.
These suction cups usually have a lever for increasing the tension.
There is a very good amount of tension being placed on the glass at this point.

If a stone should hit the windshield, and who knows how much or little speed it hits, it causes not just a small hole, but circular crack around the shape of the suction cup. I don't think these are repairable. You can try though, experiment.
But for your own sake, don't use these suction cup cell phone holders.

[screenman]

I have repaired hundreds of those types of damage, we mostly find they they are caused by the impact of a largish blunt object.


Here is a video showing something like this break being repaired.

http://www.deltakits.com/training/video ... pact-point

[Dave M]

That's not the type of break that shoppersplace is describing after looking at his picture! Let's see a video of one of those being repaired!

[screenman]

Surely it is just two of those shown?

[Brent Deines]

Looks like the same type of break to me, just larger and like screeman said two cracks instead of one. My experience has been these generally fill quite well and even quite quickly. The best part is customers are typically amazed that they can be repaired and at how much better they look after they are filled.

Not sure how much the cell phone holders have to do with it but I suppose that is possible.

[screenman]

I must add I was repairing that type of damage back in 1988 before suction cups were stuck on windshields. I can see that a very strong one being pushed about clumsily may cuase a problem.

Another thing for me to go and experiment with.

[Brent Deines]

You can see the impact point on the outside of the glass so the damage was not "caused" by the cell phone holder being attached to the glass. Like screenman, I was reparing damage like that long before cell phones existed or anyone was attaching things to their windshield with suction cups.

The lever indicates it's not really a suction cup but rather a vacuum cup so very little pressure is needed to apply it. Once attached the only pressure on the glass is from the weight of the cell phone which is relatively insignificant but I'm not an expert in such things so shoppersplace's assumption that attaching a cell phone to the winshield makes it more suceptable to this type of damage may have merit. I simply don't know one way or another. If it does the same logic would hold true for windshield mounted rear view mirrors.