Types Of Windshield Rock Chips

Windshield rock chip breaks where traditionally placed in one of four categories; Bullseye, Halfmoon, Star & Combination. Nowadays, we have an additional four categories to place them in; Surface Chip, Angel Wings, Star Burst and Straight-line Break.

Generally, each of these eight break types are repairable depending on the size of the damage and its location on the windshield. We must take special care when doing repairs where the damage is at the edge of the windshield because the design stresses are higher in this area. We need to be able to fully access the rock chip break to properly restore it.

Bullseye Break

The Bullseye break is one of the most common rock chip damages to windshields. This break looks like the bullseye on a dartboard, a cone shaped break on the outer layer of glass.

Combination Break

The combo break is a mix of the Star break and the Bullseye break chip types. This break will be cone shaped with a star break present inside of it.

Half Moon Break

The Half Moon break, also referred to as a partial bullseye, looks similar to a bullseye except it has a half circle in the middle of it. When the rock or other debris impacted the windshield, it did so at an odd angle. This type of break is more difficult to repair so that the break doesn’t crack in the future.

Star Break

The Star Break has cracks, which we refer to as legs, radiating from the center of the damage making it resemble a star.  If the legs on the break extend too far, we may have to do a crack repair to prevent it from spreading further.

Star Burst Break

The Star Burst break resembles a combination break but with a large number of cracks (legs) protruding from the impact point.

Surface Chip

A surface chip is damage to the outer layer of the windshield glass but didn’t impact into the inner layer which is poly-vinyl butyral.

Angel Wing Break

An Angel Wing break is a combination break that has distinct cracks that extend left and right of the impact damage and look like wings.

Straight Line Break

A Straight Line break has a fracture splitting the glass across the impact point left to right.