How To Cover a Broken Car Window Properly

Updated October 2026 · BL Auto Glass · Serving Central Florida

Ten minutes of tape now saves a soaked interior and a mould problem later. Here is the method that actually holds in Florida weather.

The short answer

Heavy plastic sheeting or a contractor bag, taped to the painted door frame on the OUTSIDE, pulled tight, with the top edge tucked under the door seal if you can. Tape to paint, not to rubber. Outside, not inside. Tight, not baggy. That combination survives an afternoon storm; the usual version does not.

Then get it replaced, because a covered window is a stopgap and not a repair. Call 407-388-4718.

Clear the glass first

Before covering anything, get the loose glass out of the frame. Tempered glass breaks into blunt pebbles rather than blades, so the risk is low, but wear gloves anyway and push the remaining pieces outward rather than into the door.

Run a vacuum over the seat, the seat rails and the carpet. Do not worry about getting every fragment from inside the door shell; that is part of the replacement job and needs the door card off to do properly.

One thing to skip: do not tape over glass still stuck in the frame and hope. It works loose and ends up in the door mechanism.

What to use, in order of how well it works

• Plastic sheeting or a heavy contractor bag plus packing tape. The standard answer and the best one. Cheap, waterproof, holds shape when pulled tight.
• A purpose-made window cover. Works well if you already own one. Not worth waiting a day for.
• A rubbish bag and duct tape. Acceptable. Duct tape is the weak point: it lifts in heat and leaves residue on paint.
• Cardboard. Fine for one dry night in a garage. It fails the moment it rains.
• Cling film. Does not hold, does not seal, and blows through at any speed.

The three things people get wrong

Taping to the rubber seal. Tape does not stick to weather seal, and pulling it off later can tear the rubber. Tape to the painted metal of the door frame.

Covering from the inside. It looks tidier and it fails first. Wind pressure at speed pushes an inside cover into the car and peels it. Covering from the outside means the wind presses it flat against the frame.

Leaving it baggy. Slack plastic flaps, and flapping works tape loose within an hour of driving. Pull it taut before the last piece of tape goes on.

If you can tuck the top edge up under the door's outer seal, do it. That is what stops water tracking down inside the door.

Driving with it, and for how long

Short, slow, local trips only. A covered window blocks your view to that side, so that mirror is doing all the work, and merging toward the covered side is genuinely harder. At highway speed the noise is significant and the covering usually fails.

On timing, the Florida problem is not the glass, it is water. An afternoon storm through an open window soaks seat foam and carpet underlay, and wet underlay in this climate grows mould in days, not weeks. That is a far more expensive problem than the window.

Same-day replacement is usually available, so the cover rarely needs to last more than a night.