How to inspect your windshield for hidden damage after a hailstorm

Australia's eastern seaboard knows hailstorms the way the outback knows red dust. Supercell thunderstorms sweep across the ranges west of Brisbane, hammer the suburbs of Sydney and Melbourne, and pound the wheat belts of South Australia with stones the size of golf balls. When the sky clears, drivers step outside expecting shattered metal panels and dented bonnets, yet the windscreen often tells a quieter story. Hairline fractures, compressed impact craters and moisture-trapped bullseyes can sit almost invisible until the next temperature swing turns them into spreading cracks.

A careful post-storm inspection protects more than the glass itself. Modern windscreens are a structural part of the vehicle, contributing to airbag deployment timing and roof crush resistance during a rollover. A compromised pane can turn a minor fender-bender on the M1 into a much more serious outcome. Spending fifteen minutes with a methodical check, followed by honest documentation, gives you leverage with the insurer and peace of mind before the next changeable afternoon rolls in.

What hail actually does to automotive glass

Hail does not strike a windscreen like a baseball. Each stone hits at a different angle, with a different mass, and lands on a surface that has been pre-stressed by previous thermal cycles. The result is rarely a single clean hole. Instead you get radial fractures that travel outward from the point of impact, concentric circles that ring the crater, and tiny pits that scatter light when the sun hits them at the right angle. These are the three classic signatures of hail damage, and they each behave differently over time.

A pit or ding is essentially a compressed divot where the outer layer of glass has been crushed but not broken through. Left alone, it will not spread, but it will collect dust, wax and water, and it can refract sunlight into a dangerous flash for oncoming drivers. A bullseye looks like a dark dot surrounded by a milky halo and indicates the stone penetrated slightly deeper, reaching the plastic interlayer. A star break is the most aggressive form, with radiating lines that can race across the whole screen within days if the cabin heats up and cools rapidly, as often happens during a Queensland summer afternoon.

Gather your tools and choose the right lighting

A proper inspection needs more than a squint in the driveway. You want a spray bottle with clean water, a clean microfibre cloth, a bright torch or a smartphone flashlight, and a roll of painter's tape in a bright colour. The tape is optional but useful: a small arrow next to each mark helps an insurance assessor find exactly what you found, and it stops you from losing track during the scan. A magnifier can also help, especially on older windscreens that already carry years of tiny pitting from motorway driving.

Lighting is the make-or-break factor. Inspect under overcast skies if you can, or move the car into a shaded area where the glass transitions from bright to dim. Direct overhead sun flattens the contrast and hides shallow damage, while a low-angle beam rakes across the surface and throws every pit and crack into sharp relief. If you only have time to do one thing, park the car so the sun is behind you and walk around the vehicle slowly, scanning low across the glass like you would scan a wall for a flaw in fresh paint.

A systematic visual sweep of the surface

Begin at the driver's side top corner and work in a grid pattern, moving across the top, then down about twenty centimetres, then across again. Treating the glass like a chessboard keeps you honest and prevents the eye from skipping large sections. Wipe a damp cloth across each quadrant as you go; moisture fills the micro-pits and makes them sparkle, turning invisible dimples into obvious dots. This trick works particularly well on tinted upper bands where the darker glass otherwise hides shallow damage.

As you scan, listen to the cabin. With the engine off and the windows up, rap a knuckle gently against the glass at several points. A healthy laminated pane produces a dull, solid thud. A compromised area sounds slightly sharper or produces a faint rattle from the plastic interlayer having separated from the outer ply. This is not a definitive test, but it will steer your eyes back to any spot that felt or sounded different. Note each anomaly on your phone, including a photo that includes a coin or a key for scale.

The fingertip and tap test for subtle fractures

Your fingertip is surprisingly sensitive to the edges of fine cracks. Run a clean, dry finger across the surface with very light pressure. Anything you can feel with a fingernail has already broken both layers of glass, even if it looks like a single scratch. Pay extra attention to the area directly in front of the steering wheel and the lower passenger side, because hail tends to strike at angles dictated by the prevailing wind, and in Australia that often means a westerly bias coming off the ranges.

A small plastic coin or a guitar pick can help you trace hairline fractures that the eye misses. Hold it at a shallow angle to the glass and slide it slowly across suspicious regions. The coin will jump or stutter when it crosses a crack, the same way a needle jumps in a vinyl record groove. Mark anything suspicious with a tiny piece of tape and date it. Damage that grows even a few millimetres over the following forty-eight hours is damage that an insurer is far more likely to cover than a claim filed weeks later.

Pay close attention to the edges and the glass type

The outer ten centimetres of a windscreen carry the most stress, and damage close to the perimeter spreads fastest. Check the black ceramic frit band that frames the glass, because chips hidden inside it can be tricky to photograph but are exactly the ones that grow into long cracks running toward the A-pillar. If your vehicle has a heated windscreen or a built-in sensor cluster behind the rear-view mirror, check the area around the sensors carefully; impact damage in front of a camera lens will eventually interfere with lane-keeping and automatic braking functions.

It helps at this point to understand the basic glass construction differences used across the car. The front windscreen is almost always laminated, with a vinyl layer sandwiched between two glass sheets, which is why it cracks but does not shatter. Side and rear windows are usually tempered, which is why they explode into small cubes when broken. This matters during an inspection because laminated glass can sometimes be repaired when tempered glass cannot, and a mobile technician will approach each panel very differently.

Document everything for your insurer

Australian insurers treat windscreen claims under comprehensive cover, often with a separate excess or even a zero-excess benefit for the first repair. Either way, the claim is only as strong as the evidence. Photograph each impact point in daylight, with a reference object in the frame, and capture wide shots that show the entire windscreen plus the registration plate. If the storm damaged multiple panels, include a wide shot of the whole car, ideally with some of the hailstones still visible on the bonnet or roof.

Keep a written log with the date, the time the storm passed, the approximate size of the hail, and the location of the vehicle when the storm hit. In Brisbane's western corridor, for example, a storm can dump large hail in Kenmore while leaving the CBD dry. Note the odometer reading and any pre-existing damage that was on the windscreen before the event. Under the Australian Consumer Law, insurers must handle claims in a fair and reasonable manner, and a thorough log makes it much harder for a loss adjuster to argue that a crack was pre-existing rather than storm-related.

Knowing when the damage needs a professional

Some damage is safely repairable with a resin injection, which is quick, cheap, and accepted by most comprehensive policies. General rules in Australia follow the windscreen repair standard: cracks shorter than a dollar coin and bullseyes smaller than a twenty-cent piece can usually be repaired, provided they sit outside the driver's primary sight line. Anything larger, anything in the camera zone behind the mirror, or any damage that crosses the frit band almost always means a full replacement.

If you find multiple bullseyes, a crack longer than seventy-five millimetres, or any damage that sits directly in your line of sight, the safest move is to book a mobile auto-glass technician and avoid driving the vehicle until they arrive. In a country where the next town can be hundreds of kilometres away, a sudden crack growth at highway speed is a genuine safety risk. A qualified technician will also be able to recalibrate any forward-facing cameras after a replacement, which is now a requirement under many state-based inspection regimes. A small amount of careful checking on your behalf, followed by an honest handover to a professional, is the surest way to keep your windscreen strong and your insurance claim straightforward.