Yesterday (8/5) is was driving my '05 Prius, that I bought only 3 three weeks ago, home from work and passed by a State Highway Crew and one of their weed-whackers threw a stone that hit one of my passenger side windows. I looked over but didn't see any chips or cracks but when I got a couple of miles down the road, I went to close the passenger side rear window so I could turn the AC on and the window completely disintegrated - all over the back seat. Some of the glass fell out of the vehicle and damaged the paint on the door and quarter panel. $1200 dollars to get it fixed but not until 8/17. Estimate has 3 hours just for cleaning the glass out of the vehicle. Has anyone experienced this? The warranty won't cover it (which I can understand - it's the same as if someone threw a baseball through the window), but on the other hand, the glass just disintegrated!!! What if there had been a person in that seat? Why don't they use the same type of glass in all windows as they use in the windshield???
Do you have any pictures? was there anything left of the window? Typically, car windows are tempered glass. Tempered Glass has so much internal stress that the smallist chip can cause this sort of disintegration. It is actually the /only/ material that can't be cut, even by specialty equipment like waterjets. They just shatter.
The 'disintegration' is a feature. The alternatives are either and expensive product like the windshield which will stick together or regular glass that would break into long sharp deadly shards. The little chips of glass though a pain, are much safer...they can make little cuts and getting them out of hair and skin and clothes is a real pain. Consider having your windows tinted, they help prevent some of the problem you describe...won't keep the glass from breaking, but not so much should come into the vehicle and it may catch a projectile and prevent it from entering the cabin with such force.
We had a similar incident years ago with our van - In our case, the side window disintigrated as designed when it got hit by a rock thrown by a mower. It's fortunate that it did because the small pieces landed all over my young daughter in her car seat. She had *no* injuries. If the glass hadn't been designed to disintegrate, she would have had major cuts. Our insurance company filed a claim with the state and they picked up all of the expenses.
Thanks for the replies. Nothing really left of the glass in the door where it is suposed to be. The majority of it landed in very small pieces on the back seat and floorboard, several small pieces landed in the front passenger seat and several small pieces landed in the very back of the car. Also, there is some glass in the vent for the battery next to the passenger side rear seat. The place where I got the estimate took various pictures but I haven't taken any yet. I'll take some of my own and post them. I'm really bummed mostly because I was planning on going to see the Prius Marathon near Pittsburgh this weekend. I hear they are doing quite well! I was going to try to get some 'pulse and glide' lessons. In the three weeks I have owned my Prius, I have run three full tanks of gas thru it. 1490 miles on 27.974 gallons or 53.26 mpg. My average MFD reading was 55.5 though. I try to use the same pump at the same gas station at about the same time of day, but the last time I filled up I had to use a different pump and I think that pump put more gas in the tank because I went about 30 miles further than I did in the first two tanks before the first 'pip' on the 'guess gauge' went out.
Reminds me of a movie/show/something I saw on tv where a woman was accusing a sumariner of spending $300 for an ashtray. He threw it on the floor and it broke into three even pieces. He picked it up and explained that you can't have ashtrays breaking and killing people. It's the same when a bike helmet or quarter panel breaks into a million pieces and is expensive to repair. You can complain about the cost or realize that the energy it absorbed would otherwise have been transferred to you. You are much more expensive to replace.
That was The West Wing. Of course, my feeling is that you shouldn't be smoking on submarines anyway. But I asked my Dad about this years ago when there was a lot of reporting in the news about $600 toilet seats and screw drivers. He worked as an engineer on contract and sometimes for the military. He says the problem is that the military will have all sorts of specifications for, say, a screwdriver. You can't just go to Sears and buy a set of craftsmen because there isn't any data about whether they meet the criteria set up the government. So you have to custom make the screwdriver and then you have to design and build the test equipment to make sure the screwdriver meets all of the standards of the contract. You have to pay people to design and build the test equipment and then run the tests and provide adequate documentation. I understand things are a lot better now and the military actually does buy "off the shelf" items now. I can understand needing special, expensive tools for the shuttle, but for the local base auto shop, they should just go to Sears. And there is no need for ashtrays at all. They shouldn't be smoking anyway. I hope the insurance company does file a claim against the State road crew since the broken window was caused by the rock being thrown and that in itself is really dangerous. What if the window was down and a person was sitting there and got hit in the head with a rock? They'd be dead.
Your comprehensve coverage should cover the damage. As in the case above, they will then subrogate against responsible party if that is known.
Laminated glass is more expensive, and it also could prevent getting someone out of the car quickly in an emergency. Tempered glass is designed to shatter into tiny cubes when broken - these may give someone some small cuts if they're near the window when it's blown-out, but nowhere near the damage of untempered glass shards. Just one of those unlucky freak occurances. Unlikely that it would ever happen to you again. Dave
My comprehensive coverage will take care of it less my $250 deductible. I have a 'Notice of Claim Form' I will fill out and send to the state treasurer's office as well as to my insurance agent. My agent told me they may be able to recoup their losses from the state and if they do, I will get my deductible back.
Some cars do have laminated glass all around as an option, cars like the Audi A8L. In that application it's meant to deter "smash and grab" assaults. The next step up is some sort of ballistic glass like Type I or Type II, all the way up to Type IV or V. Tempered automotive glass is a huge compromise between strength, safety, and convenience/cost. As you noted, when it lets go the tension literally blows the pebbles all over the interior. This is "spalling" I wish tempered glass did have a plastic liner on the inside to control the spalling. A tinting process will provide this, so will most ballistic glass for obvious safety reasons. It might seem reasonable to have glass just as strong as the windshield all around the vehicle. However, if you should happen to roll the vehicle and are trapped, you would never be able to get out on your own. As a teenager in Utah, I would sneak to an old dump with some friends. We'd try to kick in windshields (From inside and from outside) of old junker cars. It's a lot harder than the movies and TV make it appear. From the inside it's impossilbe.
One of the most common methods to break into cars is to flick a porcelain chip from a spark plug at a side window.
Yup, I heard about that too. Apparently it shatters the window almost without any sound at all. A favorite of thieves. do not know if it would set-off the glass breakage detector though (may not be loud enough to trigger it). Dave
It may be hard to break out, but it is not impossible to crack. My friend's daughter cracked his windshield with her foot during one of her tantrums. On another one of his cars, the passenger airbag cracked the windshield. Again because of the daughter. She was learning to drive, and banged the van into the side of the garage opening, which is cement block construction.
I cracked my windshield from the inside being both stupid and lazy. I had a Nissan 200sx hatchback at the time. I was packing up my classroom at the end of the year (so didn't want to make that many trips back and forth between home and school = lazy) and so packed the car full and the last thing I put in was a ladder = stupid. On the way home I took a ditch a little too fast and the ladder bounced down and then UP and cracked the windshield from inside. Boy, I'll never by that lazy or stupid again. At least, not in the same way. I'm sure I'll find something else to be stupid and lazy about.
