Another busted windshield
Are windshields today more susceptible to cracking? After loosing 3 in only two years it became a serious question. Truth be told, however, the original held up well enough with only minor cracking until a significant stone hit. Two new ones seemed to crack when looked at the wrong way. Minor impacts caused both significant cracking. Despite what should be low odds, there are more and more people with similar experiences and not just one car company or type. Is there something sinister going on or is it just poor manufacturing.
Created in 1927, Polyvinyl butyral (or PVB) is the binding material used since the 30s to laminate glass layers. They say little has changed since and the product is pretty much what is was then. They also say they have been working to make the “interlayer itself cheaper to manufacture” and/or “easier to handle and less prone to material defects”. Based on that, how much it has changed in anyone’s guess.
Glass manufacturing processes themselves have changed. The making of glass is considered an art form by some, a craft. It is said one must have “a real feel for how the ingredients come together to form glass.” If “someone who has spent years working with glass can feel that something is not quite right, or pick up on slight deviations in the machine’s sound before it results in imperfections”, then is seems appropriate to consider it an art. Some say a “dark art honed over many decades”.
It stands to reason that technology can’t hold a candle to the skilled craftsman in the process of making glass. Not to say that it can’t be beneficial. No mater how advanced the tech gets, the need for skilled people to produce quality glass will always be there. It is quite likely this industry has suffered its fair share of human loss from retirement in recent times and if what is said is any indication, it could take a long time for that skill to be replaced.
If laminating material hasn’t changed much but glass manufacturing skills slowly have been leaving with retirees, perhaps we are seeing some of that in what appears as shoddy glass windscreens. With every industry the bottom line matters and today’s push to lower carbon emissions certainly drives it look towards change, good or bad. Combined factors may be more of the reason behind an uptake in the high number of broken windscreens seen today.
It doesn’t change the fact that when a tiny pebble produces a small hole and two foot crack across our vision I don’t feel good about it.