You may love your car dearly, but nature can often be cruel and uncaring. Storms have a way of doing severe damage to the vehicles that most people rely on to carry them through their day and few parts of your car are as vulnerable as its glass. While the windshield and windows are durable enough to protect you during collisions, even minor amounts of damage can compromise this strength and leave you vulnerable. Thoroughly inspecting your vehicle's glass after a hail or wind storm is essential to staying safe on the road. These tips will help you to know what to look for and what you should do if you find a problem.

How to Inspect Your Car's Glass

Checking your windshield for problems should be easy, right? After all, it's just a big sheet of glass. Unfortunately, not all glass problems are easy to spot. Hail or airborne debris can cause relatively small defects that can rapidly spiral out of control if not corrected. If your car has suffered a recent exposure to these weather events, then follow this three-step process to check for damage:

1. Clean your car's glass — dirt can easily hide small cracks or other damage.
2. Perform a quick exterior visual inspection of all glass surfaces (including your sunroof) to look for visible cracks, chips, or dents.
3. Park your car in a well-lit area and sit in both the driver and passenger seats, looking for damage that may only be easily visible from the inside.

With luck, you won't find anything of concern. If you do notice a problem, however, it's time to get to work on repairing it.

Dealing With Glass Problems

You may be hoping that you can ignore relatively small issues with your car's glass, but this is never an option. Even tiny chips will begin to spread as your glass heats and cools. This process can happen much more quickly than most people expect and many car owners are surprised to find that a pea-sized chip has spiderwebbed into a mess of cracks overnight. Because damaged in compromised glass can spread so quickly, contacting an auto glass specialist as soon as possible is crucial. Technicians can usually fill small defects, but larger defects or a large number of minor defects will necessitate replacement.

Why You Shouldn't Wait

In addition to the possibility that the damage will spread, it is equally critical to understand that your car's glass is a significant safety element. The glass on your vehicle provides structural support in an accident and driving with damaged glass can put your safety in jeopardy. Any damage that you find on your windows in the aftermath of a storm should be repaired by a qualified, skilled auto glass technician. The cost of repair or replacement is a small price to pay to ensure your safety and the safety of your passengers.

For more information, contact an auto glass service in your area.