when taking pictures in full sun, bright objects break up into small white dashes

[splash_fr]

Do you mean on the screen at the back of the camera or in the actual picture files?
If the first, it is actual the overexposure warning telling you that these parts of the picture will be too bright to show lots of detail since one (or more) color channels will be saturated. This will not show in the actual pictures.
If the second, I donÄt know. Please post example pictures.

Rgds,
Gerd.

[Adam]

Could be flare or ghosting. Please post a sample.

Also, to mitigate this try varying the angle of the light source, or use a lens with better aberration handling (primes often outperform zooms).