Your windshield is made of Laminated Safety Glass. What makes it unique is its special construction, designed to offer optimum safety in the event of a crash. Laminated Safety Glass is made up of two pieces of glass, with a thin layer of vinyl sandwiched between them. The three pieces are laminated together by applying heat and pressure in a special oven called an autoclave.

When a small object strikes a piece of safety glass, often only the outer layer struck breaks. In a more severe impact, the glass “shatters” but usually does not fly apart – the broken pieces of glass generally adhere to the vinyl inner lining. Laminated Safety Glass also acts as a barrier to objects moving inside the vehicle.

The side and rear windows are made of Tempered Glass. As the name implies, the glass has been “tempered”, i.e., put through a special process where it is heated, then rapidly cooled. This “tempering” process makes the glass many times stronger than un-tempered glass of the same thickness.

Upon impact, Tempered Glass is designed to disintegrate into small pieces of glass about the size of rock salt. There should be no large, jagged pieces of glass to injure the driver or passengers. However, the force necessary to break a piece of tempered glass is considerably more than an un-tempered piece.