Windscreen repairs

An HGV very kindly gave me a chip today in my travels.  I normally make the point to my learners to keep well back from them when they are in front of you,  but this particular one was oncoming, there was very little I could have done to prevent it.

To my untrained eye, it seems that some have pretty substantial mud flaps to the rear of the wheels, some have them but not quite so ‘meaty’ and some have none at all.  The bigger, wider wheels increase the chance of picking up stones, mud, water on the roads and so it’s quite a big deal really. 

I rang Waveneys, who after giving me a £20 admin fee for changing my address, put me through to their windscreen people, who just so happen to have a depot where I was about to do a lesson.  So when I finished the lesson, I popped in and within 45 minutes the chip was almost invisible to the eye.  On seeing my driving school signage the chap must have assumed that I’m bothered, and so started to explain that they drill a hole, fill this, do that..... honestly mate, just fix it.

So the theory goes, by getting a small chip sorted as soon as it happens, it prevents a crack from occurring later.  Cracks can develop from a sudden jolt as well as from extreme temperatures.   The only thing I did consider doing was popping into the test centre and running it past one of the examiners there (we are fortunate to have a very helpful crew at Peterborough), but it is so incredibly small now, I think I’d be wasting my time.

All they needed was my underwriters details on the insurance and my signature – I’m curious as to how that works financially for all concerned, but Waveneys assured me fixing the windscreen did not cost me a penny...... how they justify changing an address costs £20 is beyond me – it made no difference whatsoever to the premium.  One of our other insurers for the house charged £40 to do the same.

I was quite pleased all in all though, if they could not have fixed it, I would have needed to pay a £75 excess for a new windscreen so it could well have been worse.  I overheard a guy in the office talking to a customer on the phone, the size of the chip is clearly a big deal.  “Would you see it still if you put a pound coin over it?”, turned out, that the customer described the size of the chip as ‘pinhead’.  As such, the customer was advised that it is so small they cannot do anything for it as the drilling process alone would turn out to be bigger than the current size of the chip.