I had not owned my new Prius for 24 hours (had 35 miles on it) and a truck ahead of me kicked up a rock that hit my windshield on the upper right side and left a small half-inch crack. I figured that I would wait until something else happened before I got it replaced. A week later the temperature dropped from 40's to teens overnight (Connecticut). The next morning the crack had grown into a nice horseshoe shape about 8" across becuase of the temperature change. I am getting it replaced today. With all these cracks in the glass I can now see that a Prius windshield looks much thinner than any other car I have owned. Is this this to reduce weight or is is my imagination?
In Montana, having at least ONE rock chip is part & parcel with driving. We got one, driver's side, low near the bottom. Nothing to do w/ thickness. It's just the luck of the draw.
Driving dad's Nissan Patrol on a highway in Melbourne a rock that could only have been thrown up by the wheels of a Mitsubishi Lancer put a rather large star crack in the Patrol windscreen. Just the way it goes sometimes.
When I lived in Cleveland, there was so much road construction that thrown rocks were an unavoidable fact of life. My poor little Honda CRX had a cluster of rock chips on the driver's side that looked like a shotgun pattern. They didn't block my view, and the windshield hadn't cracked, so I left them there. I used to tell passengers that I got them running a police barricade. Tom
Many cars have the windshield glued in, and it provides structural strength to the front of the car. It also means it is stressed when the frame is loaded. Coupled with the temp change, small cracks rarely stay small anymore. It's probably normal and most cars would react similarly. By the way, many insurance policies cover window damage outside of the usual deductable, so be sure to ask.
Not just Prius, I got numerous rock-hit from my previous car(s) too (almost inevitable!) Some are just scratching the glass, some created tiny hit craters, and couple of small bull-eyes as well. Not all windshields will crack by the hit, it depends on what type of rock (hard rock, soft rock or rock salt) got kick up, how fast it got kicked up (40mph vs 70mph) and angle of hit (scratch on the surface or bulls-eye direct hit). Luck counts because you never know the way will hit you. The only thing we can do is to minimize the chance to get 'rocked' by avoiding to follow cars with big tires (Semi, SUVs, Vans) and slow down slightly when you first hear debris-hitting sound (when cars going through a freshly dig/patch up road).
