Breaking glass: It's rare, but windows and sunroofs are shattering (2024)

Automotive glass is supposed to stay in one piece, but that isn’t always the case. Recently, an Ontario woman reported her new Volkswagen’s rear window shattered when she closed one of its doors.

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According toGlobal News, Michelle Tupper of Tillsonburg, Ontario, bought a 2021 VW Tiguan. Three weeks later, she reached into the sport-utility while it was parked, and when she closed the door, the rear window broke.

The vehicle was towed to a dealer and examined by a technician. A spokesperson for Volkswagen Canada told the news agency the shattered glass was “the result of some sort of impact from the outside.” Tupper paid the bill for the repair.

Tupper’s issue was with the rear window, but vehicle owners have been complaining for decades about sunroofs that “explode” while they are driving.

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Global News had previously reported on a driver whose sunroof shattered on his 2021 VW Atlas as he was driving on a highway east of Toronto. Volkswagen Canada told Global News the breakage was caused by “direct impact,” such as from a rock or other debris on the road, but paid $500 toward the insurance deductible.

While sunroof “explosions” are relatively rare, they do happen, and Volkswagen certainly isn’t the only automaker affected by them. In 2017, Consumer Reports investigated and found that at least 859 complaints had been reported to U.S. federal agencies over a 22-year period. The list included 208 models from 35 automakers, and most sunroofs broke within the first two years of ownership.

In that report, Hyundai had the highest number of complaints among auto brands, followed in order by Ford, Nissan, Kia, Scion, Toyota, Honda, Volkswagen, Cadillac, and BMW. The models with the highest number of complaints, in order, were the Scion tC, Hyundai Veloster, Kia Sorento, Nissan Murano, Kia Optima, Ford Explorer, Honda Accord, Cadillac SRX, Nissan Maxima, and Hyundai Santa Fe.

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The number of complaints rose steadily from 1995 to 2013, and then spiked in 2015. Most from that year involved Hyundai and Kia. Consumer Reports said that Kia “offered no explanation,” while Hyundai said that it had recalled the Veloster for a “flaw in the assembly process that may have damaged the glass.”

The publication noted that an increase in sunroof complaints by consumers to the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) coincides with an increase in popularity of larger, panoramic-style sunroofs, with some automakers offering them as standard equipment on upper trims. Regulatory standards haven’t been updated alongside this increase in sunroof size. Many are made of tempered glass, which isn’t meant for very large sunroofs. Panoramic sunroofs may also be curved to match the shape of the roof, which makes them more likely to break when hit by flying debris, even if it’s very small.

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Large sunroofs are also susceptible to breakage because the glass flexes when the vehicle drives over uneven pavement. The seal between the glass and frame may delaminate and let go, or the sunroof’s clips or mechanisms may hit and shatter the glass.

Consumer Reports said that while the odds of your sunroof breaking “are low,” when it does happen, there is “little consistency” in how dealers and automakers acknowledge or fix the problem, and who pays for it.

Consumers and their lawyers have tried, but so far, it isn’t going very well. In February 2020, a judge in Washington dismissed a class-action lawsuit against Ford, ruling that the plaintiff — who owned a 2013 Ford Escape with a sunroof that “spontaneously shattered” on the highway — couldn’t prove that Ford’s panoramic sunroofs are defective, or that they regularly shatter. Ford had argued that its sunroofs are not defective, because the glass shatters into small, round pieces, as is required by federal law.

A similar class-action suit in Ohio was dismissed in October 2020 against Kia, after a man driving a 2012 Optima said his sunroof exploded on a highway in 2015. Other class-action suits have also been filed against Nissan, and one was filed against Mercedes-Benz in 2020, asking for U.S. $200 million in damages.