Rear window explosion

Did she turn on the heated backglass? My dad had this happen many years ago in a Honda Accord. The insurance paid for the broken glass, less the deductible. Then Honda came through with a recall and reimbursed for the deductible since the glass had already been replaced. The recall specified that the dealer stick some strips of sticky copper strips along the sides of the glass to better distribute current across the glass, reducing hot spots.

RK Henry

As many will no doubt say, it was certainly not air pressure that broke the window. It would not be possible for the heater fan to develop that much pressure, with or without vents.

All glass in a car, except for the windshield, is made of tempered glass. The glass is highly stressed so that if it breaks it will crumble into many little pieces, rather than long dangerous shards. While this glass is reasonably resistant to impact on its face, it is very sensitive to thermal stress (as another poster pointed out) or to stress applied to the edges.

I would favor the theory of uneven heat from the rear defroster, if that was turned on. It is possible that an installation problem might have allowed the edge of glass to contact the metal frame of the window, transferring a shock to the edge of the glass. I have no experience with that, its just a guess.

FYI: Windshields are not tempered, because failure would either prevent you from seeing, if the glass shattered but did not fall out, or the pieces might end up in your eyes, if they did fall out. Instead, a windshield is made from two sheets of glass with a clear goop of some kind between them, so that if it breaks you have a cracked sheet or sheets of glass that you can still see through, but is flexible and that does not fall apart.

I agree - IMO it's not air pressure, but the temperature. Still should not have done that and the fact that you don't hear about it more often (as there are plenty of Vue's operating in that temperature or colder) leads me to think that it was probably a defect in the glass or in the installation of the glass. It may even be a minor, visually unnoticeable defect in the frame for the glass. I would definitely go the route of getting it fixed through warranty. It can't hurt, although it will be damn cold on your drive over to the dealer! :)

The other thing is by doing that, at least if it does it again, Saturn will have it on record that they did the repair before. You may have an argument to have them fix it again even if the car is out of warranty at that time.

Scott

I don't have anything to help here, just a couple of anecdotes that indicate auto glass can be fragile. I had a rear window shatter on a parked '74 Gremlin when a strong gust of wind lifted it up and slammed it. This past November, a week after Holloween, somebody driving past in a car tossed a dead pumpkin at my parked '04 Vue's rear window and shattered it. Crumbled glass ended up throughout the interior, all the way up to the dashboard. I'm still cleaning up bits of glass from nooks and crannies. This might be funny, except that the repair cost $600.

The glass on my father's 1957 Ford wagon broke into tiny pieces and stayed intact in the frame for a few days. It was open and parked and the sun must have hit it just right for a while. Thermal stress was the only explanation. I was a young lad at the time.

It's not common but it happens. My dad's honda minivan had one window just go boom suddenly one day, though we suspected it got pegged by a rock from the weedwacker, but never confirmed it. car windows have been known to spontaniously go boom for whatever reason. Happens to all cars...

I'd say the glass was installed in a bind or improperly cushioned. The internal pressure had nothing to do with it. The most pressure there is is when you slam the door. And they don't blow out then.

Thank you all for the responses and insight. Since the Vue is my wife's car and my 22 month-old daughter rides in it as well, we had insurance cover the repair. Should I call the dealership we purchased the vehicle from to report the issue, or should I go straight to Saturn? I'm not overly concerned with having my deductible reimbursed (would be nice, but I'm not losing any sleep over it, nor will I hold my breath), but I wonder if there is a similar issue to what RK saw with Honda. Other owners deserve to know if there's an issue with the defroster.

Thanks again

Jim

My guess is if the insurance industry sees a trend, they will bitch.

I think you've hit the nail on the head, probably due to faulty installation. The glass expanded, something blocked it's movement and KABOOM. I've hear anecdotes about this happening. Since it's likely a manufacturing defect, it should logically be covered under warranty. I don't know how stinky Saturn is about claims these days . When I got my '96 they were very generous, but times change.

As far as air pressure is concerned, a car is well vented. If it wasn't, you wouldn't get much air flow through the vehicle when using the heater, AC, or fresh air ventilation. Plus you'd likely get a lot of condensation on your windows. So the car has to be a sieve for air.

You can most likely throw faulty installation out the window. The rear window isnt mounted like that anyways. It is a not so common thing for car windows to break in or out due to extreme heat / cold exposure as you described. Think about it: -2 F outside, rear window defroster heating the glass, heater inside, the temp inside of the vehicle is many degrees hotter than the frozen outside. Now throw in slamming the door. It would not take much pressure of the door closing for the window which is hot on one side and frozen on the other to cause the glass to weaken and "explode".

marx404