When you are driving down the road, you have a windshield and other windows that keep you safe, comfortable and bug-free! Your windshield is an important feature of your vehicle’s safety and a windshield needs to be made with specially produced glass- not just any standard pane of glass. Windshield glass has some notable differences than other glass, namely:

Windshield glass is tempered glass. Tempered glass is specially treated glass to ensure a different kind of breakage. For example, if you have ever dropped a drinking glass, you know how quickly it can shatter into thousands of piercing shards of glass. Tempered windshield glass, however, is much stronger and breaks into chunks rather than shards, making it far safer in case of impact. Usually it requires a lot of force to break a windshield, whereas a standard pane of glass requires very little impact for it to shatter.

Windshield glass is laminated. Laminated glass is actually layering of glass and vinyl fused together in a specialized heating process. This is why you can have a rock strike your windshield and it will only chip to a certain point.

Your windshield is more complex than you might realize. Windshield glass is specially designed, needs to curve exactly right and fit exactly right order to create the right seal. This process isn’t always easy and needs to be started over if the fit is anything but perfect.

When your windshield glass is made correctly, it can be a safe addition to any car!