Rear window screen shattered

[Ruff]

Hi

I've a aygo 2009. Within 10 minutes of leaving my car the rear glass had shattered for no apparent reason. The glass wasnt knocked, had no previous damage.

The only thing I can think is i had the rear heater on for less than 5 minutes. 

What could have caused this? 

TIa

[furtula]

You probably had earlier damage you were not aware of.

My cousin had same thing during summer, suddenly a long hairline crack appeared, out of nowhere while driving, due to AC being used and weather outside being very hot.

Even while parked the crack spread some 10cm more, while driving you could hear the glass squeak when going over potholes.

Later that day we saw that the crack originated from a bulseye crack in the lower, black painted part of the windshield, it was so hard to notice, he did not see it before.

 

Anyway, i guess you had the same, due to heaters being used.

[FROSTYBALLS]

In a previous Honda we had, the front passenger door glass was hit by a stone thrown up by a council mower without immediate effect. However five minutes further down the road, the glass suddenly imploded into the car.

[Mooly]

I'd say almost certainly impact damage. Could anyone have been throwing stones or anything have fallen from a roof? Side and rear glass shatters instantly into zillions of very tiny pieces, totally different to a front screen which is laminated.

[FROSTYBALLS]

44 minutes ago, Mooly said:

Side and rear glass shatters instantly into zillions of very tiny pieces

Not our experience highlighted above.

[Ruff]

No couldn't have been impact as parked in a place where nothing could have fallen, checked cctv too.

It did shatter into lots and lots of pieces😞

[FROSTYBALLS]

... or thrown at it.

[Newsuse]

2020 Toyota Highlander rear window exploded spontaneously parked in our driveway. My husband and I both saw it happen. Millions of glass shards on driveway and inside car. No cracks or stars on window, nothing struck it, and it was stationary. Toyota is not cooperative in helping us find a cause, owning that it most likely was faulty glass, or offering any kind of compensation. Has anyone experienced this?

[FROSTYBALLS]

The dealer or Toyota will be unable to examine the screen, so cause can't be determined.

Presumably your insurance glass cover will cover the damage.

[dads Taxi x3]

I thought I could help here but its 3 yrs old .  I have a toyota aygo beck windscreen the demister lines don't work  so if anyone needs a back screen  it's yours  off a 2012 reg.

[haelewyn]

https://only1autoglass.com/Blog/entryid/1337/can-auto-glass-spontaneously-shatter-5-things-you-need-to-know
 

Read all about it  😁

Seems to be more common than you would think as this company decided to write a rather large essay about it.

[RUToyota]

1 hour ago, haelewyn said:

https://only1autoglass.com/Blog/entryid/1337/can-auto-glass-spontaneously-shatter-5-things-you-need-to-know
 

Read all about it  😁

Seems to be more common than you would think as this company decided to write a rather large essay about it.

Quite so...Happened to me some years ago with a Volvo V70..happily sitting on my drive..then bang.!..was a quite a hot day as I recall.

Autoglass told me it is much more common than peeps think.

[yossarian247]

Happened to a colleague's Renault too. The car was locked in their garage and they returned to it to find that the rear window had shattered.

[Cyker]

I must admit I hadn't thought it was very common except in some cases, e.g. I think it was the smartcar with the glass roof that was extremely prone to just randomly shattering, but beyond that have never come across it!

[haelewyn]

I read about the (old days) Peugeot 309 where they developed the first series trunk with a high loading hight to ensure the stiffness of the car, to avoid the window (still built in with a rubber) would shatter as a result of the pressure.

Later they changed this design as it became a habit to glue on windows.

It seems that Tesla had a few cars where the window in the right back door broke just out of itself.

A small stone chip dent in a window can lead to sudden breakage, especially after many cold > warm > cold cycles.

[Bper]

It must be really disconcerting when you watch any of your car windows spontaneous break and then search for answers as to why this has happened. So many reasons of why this can happen from original installation of the glass to pressure on the glass ,temperature,stone chip, etc etc. Unless it's an obvious problem from a crack or chip I think it's best to just accept and get it repaired. It does happen a lot more then motorists are aware of.👍