Anyone ever crack a windshield by rinsing a car on a hot day?

Was doing a roof cleaning yesterday and I was rinsing the vehicles as my partner was spraying the roof. We got a call back saying their windshield was cracked now. It was 85-90 out I guess the cool water could have done it? Or maybe there was already a chip or crack forming and I just helped it along?

Wasn’t you. If ambient temp water cracked got windshields everyone in Florida would have cracked windshields every time it sprinkled.

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Windows in houses can crack easier than a car windshield. If spraying cool water on hot windows can crack them, we’d all be screwed washing houses in the summer.

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which would happen at about 4pm every afternoon…

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Automotive glass is Tougher than one may think.

NEvX4P

That’s why most of use carried a spark plug in our gear

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image

Can SH crack a brittle windshield?

No way you did it. 85-90 is nothing.

Explain what a brittle windshield is.

I actually did this to my truck last year…

My windshield already had a small impact crack which was caused because I was driving too close to a dump truck, which kicked a rock up and hit the windshield. That impact crack was about the size of a Dime or a Nickel.

Well last year in about 90degree weather I washed my truck down at the end of the job because it had housewash mix overspray on it. I rinsed the windshield and as soon as the water stopped flowing down the windshield I was able to see a large crack. It started at the impact crack and runs across the whole windshield.

I’ll replace the truck before I replace the windshield.

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Hopefully it doesn’t have rain sensing wipers or HUD or any of that fancy crap. If not, should be relatively cheap to get replaced. I highly doubt it was your fault but probably just easier to eat it.

That was my initial thought as well and I told the customer there wasn’t a chance we could have done that. But after looking into it further it is rare but it does happen. I guess car washes run into this on rare occasion too. I’m guessing the windshield was already chipped or something and I just helped it along. Anyways I called her back and told her I’d pay to replace it but she said her insurance will probably take care of it anyway and she’s leaving us a 5 star review :+1::+1::+1:

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that’s a win/win there!

Not if she left a review. That’s a just a future headache if they call wanting thier house washed again :slight_smile:

them, and 5 more people who saw it… :rofl:

You did the solid thing. You might hear back from them about covering their non covered deductible.

You won the bad luck lotto on that one man. I would bet the crack was already there just extremely small. Then the rapid change in temp caused the glass to shrink ever so slightly and bang. Either way good on you for working with them about it, I agree with others it’s not anything you could control or have caused.

welll…here it goes,
SH was left to dry and created salt crystals.
These concentrated on small cracks and while mixing with the glass silica and the rapid change of temperature, from hot to cold, due to the overspray it was the catalyst needed for the crystals to expand at a faster rate; thus cracking the windshield.