How Windshield Chips Could Affect Your Vehicle’s ADA Systems

In the past we’ve written about the new advances to vehicles, including autonomous vehicles and windshield cameras, and we’ve tried to imagine how this will impact our auto glass industry from our point of view and your point of view, as the consumer. It’s hard to tell what these improvements mean for the windshields we know and depend on today, but we’re seeing some problems arise with the new developments.

I’m sure you’ve seen the Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) in newer vehicles, it includes the blind spot monitors, automatic parking, and collision avoidance systems. Basically, they are assisting drivers and preventing accidents or collisions. Typically, the cameras installed on a vehicle with ADAS are put near the windshield, or in the future we may find them IN our windshield. So what happens when our windshield is blemished?

For now, windshield chips may only affect your ADAS if they’re located where your camera looks out to the road. And the type of chip is important too – is it small or large, a line or a star crack? The larger the crack, the more likely it is distorting your camera’s view.

During the repair process, we usually don’t have much interaction with the ADAS camera. In some replacements it may be necessary to unplug the camera, but the chip itself doesn’t affect the actual camera. It may affect it’s ability to function, but it won’t damage the system.

However, when you unplug the system it will require recalibration. Which means it may be more important than ever to maintain your windshield glass to avoid any extra costs or trouble with recalibrating your ADAS.

To learn more about what you should to do to maintain your fleet vehicle’s windshields, click here.

While windshield chips may not directly damage your ADAS camera, it could cause more work and more labor in the event of a repair. It’s possible repairs could be more appealing than a windshield replacement because, if the chip is repairable we don’t have to worry about messing with your ADAS camera. As opposed to a replacement in which we have to unplug and recalibrate it.

While windshield chips and ADAS issues may cause some problems in the auto glass repair industry, we’re ready to tackle it head on and make the adjustment to new technology as easy as possible for our customers!