pop goes the windshield cause the windshield goes pop

yesterday was about 3 in the morning. i started the truck and let it warm up 15 minutes to prevent freezing the baby to death on the way to grandma's house. i had defrost and floor heat on. when i pulled out onto the street what was left of the snow on my hood blew up, hit the glass, and the windhshield snapped all the way across. i told my wife and the same thing happened to one of her co-workers.

how common is this? i've never had it happen before. i wish ohio was a free glass replacement insurance state.

Very common

Very common for Third Bass.

Same thing happened to my '89 C1500.

There was likely a small stone chip somewhere that started it. If nothing is visible, take a pencil and trace along the crack line. You will most likely feel the starting point somewhere.

Sudden temperature shock like that is definitely a common way to break a windshield. The first 100°+ day and the first sub freezing weeks here are usually pretty busy for us.

If there's ANY sort of small chip or imperfection, it will reveal itself during a sudden temp change like that.

I worry about this when its this cold out. my s10 makes some weird creaking sounds from the windshield as it starts to warm up. so far no breaks but it always seems to lurk in my mind

In reply to patgizz:

Common the best solution we learned in our family is to completely clear off the hood.

Also never (YMMV but why risk it) blast the heat onto the front glass if it also has snow or ice build up. Only lowest fan setting until melted or cleared snow/ice. Then you can turn up the fan. This was learned over the course of 5-6 windshields replaced over 2 Oldsmobiles and 1 Buick.

My company pickup truck also had a failure but was due to a big puddle splash from the lane next to mine on the freeway. Very cold bright sunny day was wearing my sunglasses and in an instant PITCH BLACK zero visibility!! The entire windshield and one side glass are covered in about 4-5 mm of icy slush, wipers took 2 full swipes to get enough off for me to see where I was going at a spritely 60Mph. Then behold the full width crack.

I wish the original windshield in my 86 Nissan truck would do this. Its so pitted its hard to see driving into the sun. The SOB just won't break.

One of my cars and my old Sierra did it just sitting in the driveway, and not even running.

Appleseed wrote: Very common for Third Bass.

+1 internets for you for getting the reference.

oh well on the truck, it's about an inch over the wipers straight across, way below my sight line. not going to fix it until it gets worse.

I had the rear glass on a saturn SL shatter into tiny pieces. I had the defrost on to clear up condensation, it was only 50-60 degrees out. Scared the heck outta me. Don't think I ever was able to get all the little pieces of glass cleaned up.