As I was driving on the freeway today in my 2012 Prius V (doing about 60, as there was traffic), the rear passenger window exploded all over my 9 year old son. Thankfully he was unhurt - just freaked out. We had passed some road construction, but I don't know if that is related to this or not. Has this happened to anyone else? Is it normal for a window to shatter so completely (as opposed to cracking, like a windshield)? There were shards of glass everywhere! What would cause such a thing?
That is the normal way for safety glass to shatter. It is not normal for a window to shatter without impact from something.
Sounds like another vehicle launched some road debris with its tire and your car was the unfortunate landing site. Classic road hazard.
...I seem to recall a few others have possibly posted in the last 12-months about windows spontaneously shattering ...can't recall cause but someone else may recall or try the search function and be sure to check liftback and c as I am not sure the model of the past posts (found a several old posts example below) Tempered glass is used in car windows because it is stronger than non-tempered glass, however it can shatter seemingly without cause. It can also shatter from malicious actions, of course. Tempered glass has lots of internal stress; one part pulling one way, another part pulling the other way. However, this stress is balanced so that it all evens out across the whole pane, and the glass doesn't collapse on itself. A tiny amount of damage, like a chip, can cause it to shatter weeks later though, as these stresses get imbalanced. Read more: http://priuschat.com/threads/rear-window-broken-is-this-common.112290/#ixzz2aIlmRg5c Follow us: @PriusChat on Twitter | PriusChat on Facebook
I had it happen to a rear windshield. I happened while parked during the day in a parking garage on the upper decks. No evidence of intentional breaking and an even lower likelihood of that happening. What does happen is a complete and total fracturing so that no big pieces are unleashed that can do really big damage to a body, so you want fracturing instead of normal breaking. The mess is intense, but no seats are gashed due to big glass pieces. Some of the little pieces did cut the speakers.
No way to know what caused your window to explode or shatter, but a quick Google search brought up complaints of this happening to most all car brands. I copied and pasted this from e-how which is certainly no technical website: How Tempered Safety Glass Shatters Tempered glass uses the extremely high heat to cure the glass, but what is happening is that the core of the glass, the inner layer, becomes compressed much more quickly than the outer layers. This happens over and over again during the tempering process, and an ultra fine series of stress lines develop. They are not visible to the naked eye, but break the glass, and it shatters along these many and tiny stress lines into small, safer pieces. These pieces are fairly uniform in size, and the edges are smooth. Read more: http://www.ehow.com/how-does_5001476_what-causes-car-window-shatter.html#ixzz2aIzj1H9t
Wow - thanks everyone. I feel a bit better now knowing this was normal (if unusual). Can't wait to see how much this is gonna cost me and my insurance .
