After 10 years with my car, the time arrived. Seven cracks on a windshield might sound excessive. But only when they began to impede my vision of the road did I pull the plug. The first crack made a 90-degree turn and despite running all the way across the windshield, it ran above the rearview mirror.
With the sun visors in any position, I couldn’t see it. I waited because of something I heard from multiple people – everyone in Colorado has a cracked windshield. I fit in.
A second crack met the first four years later. I endured any number of hailstorms, but the windshield held. The end came with my employer ending its full work from home policy.
What could go wrong during a 110-mile roundtrip twice a week? New cracks merged. Others squiggled well into my view. The entire piece of glass was coated in thousands of tiny blemishes.
A long-haul trip to Georgia for Christmas 2023 brought two new lines thanks to rocks thrown by truck tires. At that point, the end clearly would not wait long.
I decided to spend from savings, to have a new windshield installed. The ease of replacement cracked me up – I barely spent an hour in the autoglass place. I stressed, and the new windshield was not nearly the investment I expected.
For the first time in nearly a decade, I drove off with a clean view. Not scratches, skips, or dents. It was momentarily beautiful. Then came the paranoia about how long the clean slate would survive. For the next few months, I cringed anytime something from the road connected.
Most of the way into another December long-haul, I scouted the road for anything that would end my clear view.
With a “thunk” that sounded akin to a brick in the dark past KansasCity, the clear streak ended. I didn’t notice it until morning, and cursed when I spied the damage near Salina. Four months. I went without a crack for four months. I doubt that qualifies as a victory of any sort. I stopped and wandered the empty streets of downtown Salina to avoid contemplating the crack.
After the initial impact left a crack akin to a bullet hole, I watched it slowly stretch beyond the patchable range. The crack slowly streak across the length of the windshield, inching as inched down through Kansas into Colorado. The technician told me they could patch a crack smaller than a dollar bill. We were far beyond any patch.
Fortunately, the crack ran below the windshield wipes and was more or less invisible from the outside. Inside, sometimes the sun catches it momentarily. Throughout the winter, I thought little of the damage, just watching for leaks whenever snow accumulated.
No, the windshield came back into view in early May. The evening sun highlighted the already ancient windshield. It was a playing fields of scuffs, pockmarks, divots, scrapes, and more Here at nine months, after maybe 13,000 miles of driving, it was seasoned by the Centennial State.
The next step isn’t obvious. A new windshield every years seems like a waste when it will grow scarred so quickly.
I have no idea about a reasonable time for the next replacement – I suppose the cracks will tell me. Maybe I’ll just wait another 10 years.
By then, I might be able to afford a whole new car whose windshield will earn a crack within minutes of leaving the sale lot.
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