Well, sort of.

Got a Hyundai i40 at the back end of last year. It’s got some fancy ‘moon roof’ thing, with a strip of what looks like black glass maybe 4″ wide separating the roof from the windscreen.

Driving home tonight, there’s an almighty bang above my head. Stopped on the hard shoulder to check, and the glass strip has exploded. Shattered at both edges, and cracked running most of the length of the strip.

Dunno if it’s related, but I fitted a set of Thule roof bars on Friday. I’m wondering if it’s put some sort of odd stress on the roof which has shattered the glass. Could just be a complete coincidence of course; manufacturing fault, temperature changes, or some halfwit lobbing something off a bridge even? The glass doesn’t run exactly flush up to the metal bodywork so I’m struggling to see how it’s the bars at fault (and they’re Thule, not some cheap guff), but it does seem to be a huge coincidence.

Thoughts?

Take the roof bars off before going to the garage

Well,

The thing there is, if it is the bars, I’d rather know before I put them back on again.

Ooooh, not good! No sympathy – your bike should be inside the car nicely cosseted. 😉

Seriously, hope there’s a decent outcome. 🙂

The bike’s inside the house – the rack wasn’t loaded (other than the cycle carriers themselves). Not sure about the corsets though.

I’ll take a pic tomorrow when it’s daylight.

Hhmmm good point. Might be worth checking for any guidelines about roof bars in the manual, just in case there’s something odd going on

I’m 99% sure it doesn’t; I’ve read the manual, cos I’m a geek, and fairly sure I’d have noticed that.

I’ve just had a look at the i40 roof design and from a mechanical fettlers perspective (got degrees n’ everything) i could perceive a possible problem if you have fitted the thule pods to the roof bars and secured them, then fitted the thule pods to the roof guttering or the flush fitting locaters and tightened everything down as this may have pulled the tracks for the sliding roof out of alignment and caused the highly tempered glass roof to become overtly stressed in compression.

Did you fit through bars or flush fitting?

They’re wing bars, so through-fit.

TBH, that was my first thought too, but looking at it I’m less sure. It does make sense though.

Kinda surprised if that is the case though. I’d expect better of Thule (ie, if there was a risk, they’d say so or not sell the product). It’s a fairly new car design though, so maybe they’re not as tried and tested as they could be yet.

Thinking about it though, they were a bugger to fit. The measurements given for the foot spacing were too short, I’d to move them 1cm or so out on each side to get them to line up with the raised bodywork; without doing that, even wound out fully the feet adapters would’ve been like an inch too short. (From memory, the sizing listed was the same for the i40 and i30, which can’t be right.)

Here’s a thing.

I’ve just googled the bars to try and find some pictures, and found a copy of the instructions online.

http://www.roofracks.co.uk/_pdf/1694.pdf

The measurements are different from the ones in my pack. Those look right.

Just to show I’m not imagining things, this is what mine said.

http://www.rackattack.com/product-pages/product-pdf/thule-fit-kit-1577-instructions.pdf

*lightbulb*

It’s the wrong adapter pack, isn’t it.

The 1694 kit is for the 2011+ i40, the 1577 says 2010+. Mine’s a 2012 model.

Ooft! Hope it’s not too pricey a repair 🙁

delete thread deny all knowledge of fitting roof bars claim under warranty – or at least delete me advising you [humourlously and not at all seriously according to my lawyers]to commit fraud 😉

Bugger!, how much is a new glass roof?, you could always go back to the dealer and try the “just riding/driving along” excuse.

It’s divine retribution for being a poacher turned gamekeeper. That’ll learn you go jining the Emperor on the Dark Side…

😉

Best of luck getting it sorted though; I have the panoramic roof on my 308 sw and remember reading the car is 60% stiffer torsionally than a conventional steel roof.

I had a cracked glass roof in my kuga also….
It’s not a great material for roof panels. Cold, noisy, heavy & brittle. Hmmmm. At least the kids find it funny when a bird craps on it…

Just speculating, but I’d guess that the distortion in the body shell from normal driving is a lot more then the extra due to the bars, unless adding the bars changes the distortion in an unexpected way. Isn’t the glass bit isolated from the metal bit?

Your bars are an addition to the car. It shouldnt matter but unless you want a tarpaulin over your car for weeks I’d err on the side of caution abd take them off the car…

Marge..do you see the irony? Woman..with/could be a ‘Cougar’? 8)

I’ll bet the replacement glass (and labour) won’t be cheap…

The 1694 kit is for the 2011+ i40, the 1577 says 2010+. Mine’s a 2012 model.

Bad luck. I guess 2012 fits both of those descriptions so if you didn’t know the 1694 existed then the 1577 would look correct

Oh/edit. I’d be inclined to contact Thule and ask their opinion. If you are honest it may not look good. Down to you? Personally I dont know what I’d do. It could be argued that an aggregrate fell onto the glass from a bike too. It could also be a coincidence/design flaw that only becomes common knowledge a few yrs after your event.

I’ve read the manual,

And you call yourself a man?

I’d be inclined to contact Thule and ask their opinion.

I’m going to ring Roofbox and solicit comments.

And you call yourself a man?

No, I call myself a geek. Do keep up. (-:

I opened this thread expect to read about an Alfa 🙂

It could be argued that an aggregrate fell onto the glass from a bike too.

It could if the bars were loaded at the time.

Isn’t the glass bit isolated from the metal bit?

Far as I could tell in the dark last night, yes.

I’ll bet the replacement glass (and labour) won’t be cheap…

The double-edged sword here is, it’s a company car. So I won’t have to pony up for the replacement, but do have to go and grovel to our fleet manager.

Oh blimey! 🙁

Just for balance, I’ve had a Thule rack part fail on me resulting in my hardtail bouncing along a dual-carriageway in North Yorkshire. Distinctly unimpressed with Thule’s attitude.

The Hyundai Velosters in Australia that came with the full glass roof between certain build dates had this exploding feature too.

Hyundai recalled them all for glass replacement.

Interesting.

Thanks.

May be of interest

Hyundai recalls 6,071 more Velosters over shattering sunroofs

Having looked at it in daylight, I’m almost certain that’s the issue.

The glass sits on two rubber strips which separate the glass from the metal. Even if the bars deformed the bodywork, there’s several mm of ‘play’ before it’d touch the metal.

Is it a thermal stress imbalance in the glass that has finally corrected itself?

Bet is was a draughty commute in this morning… good news on it being a fleet car though

Well,

It’s not actually left a hole; there’s something (metal / plastic?) underneath the glass.

Incidentally, I spoke to Roofbox and they were very helpful. Sent them pics to pass on to Thule and their tech boys.

Just driving along in our old megane when the panoramic roof exploded at 70mph. Luckily the sun blind was across and caught most of it. No roof bars or racks on at the time so no idea what caused it. The new cmax also has a glass roof and the feet of the roof bars do press on this, should I be worried?

Cougar, looks like and edge crack so Thule fitting probably the initiator.
Spontaneous glass failure can be down to incomplete thermal soaking to get rid of possible nickel sulphide inclusions. Phase change at raised temperatures can cause this.
Happened to Waterloo International train station. The Hyundais in Australia are a good example. Clusters of problems, a thermocouple with nickel dripped onto the molten glass surface reacting with sulphur.
Joat’s Megane could have been the same but 70 mph could also be quite dynamically stressful for any old edge crack to take that energy and run with it.

I love this place.

I reckon you did a “Top Gear” and got too far down the slip road! The roofrack is just a smokescreen. 😉

Have both of you checked for meteorites on the back seat?