[Closed] Random exploding window

Just needed to vent

Bit extreme, but effective 😉

I remember the same thing happened to my dad's car about 20 years ago whilst driving on the motorway. Rear window just shattered. Remember him saying that he almost what himself.

I just sighed and started laughing

I had similar on a Hyundai i40 a few years ago. It had one of these all-over glass roof things but in sections. Driving up the M66 one night and the glass strip between the windscreen and the "moon roof" - ie, the bit directly over my head - spontaneously exploded. I genuinely thought someone had dropped a paving slab on top of the car except there were no bridges around, damn near soiled myself. Design fault, seemingly.

I had a double glazed window shatter in the middle of the night, but just the inner pane. Proper freaked me out.

Once left a can of beer in the back of a mates car, he was driving to work next day when it exploded, said he shat himself, his car stunk of beer for a while after that. 😆

I'm sure I remember a story as a child about a bloke driving without a rear window as his had broken. When he got to motorway speed, two small children sat in the back (pre seat belts) got sucked out.

Looking back on it, it was probably my first experience of an urban myth.

Had a packet of ‘chips’ in the back of the car explode with the change in altitude driving over the Rockies between Denver & Leadville (near that place that it’s always pissing down in).

Thought someone had started shooting at us (well it was cowboy country...). At least my mate had a good laugh...

And to compound it, when we stopped and unloaded the bikes, my Pikes had leaked oil... pffftt..

Glad to hear other tales of stuff randomly exploding.

I had the passenger 'quarterlight'? window suddenly explode in my work van on the M1...the glass stayed in (mostly) but completely obscured the wing mirror leaving me unable to see if it was safe to move left from the middle lane! Thankfully the traffic was heavy and we stopped briefly and I was able to poke a hole in it with my ten year old Road Atlas that every driver should keep for such emergencies so I could continue on my (colder) four hour drive home 🙂

and another one...
glass table top at home in the home office... no reason...BANG...
Legs raked with those small pointy edged safety glass cubes and the ones that landed on my bare feet were followed by the laptop and associated desk detritus.... blood and glass everywhere.

Desk is lovely 4mm ply topped now...

I had the interior pane explode on a Velux window last year.
If you Google it, it's a lot more common than it should be. Contacted them and they arranged a replacement f.o.c. and also checked the serial numbers on all the others as it only affects a known batch.

Temperature differentials and residual stresses in the glass from the tempering/manufacturing processes.
My Dad's old Rover 800 had a few go but more recently I work in vehicle manufacturing and I've seen this happen and worked with glass suppliers on root causes etc.

Anything you do to process safety glass adds an amount of stress (heating, cooling, adding holes/cutouts). If you're at the limit of the allowed stress or the process is out of control then basically the glass can pop at will.

We got home to our rental house after Christmas and the inner pane of one of the double glazing units was cracked. The agents wanted to bill us, I had to demonstrate that it can happen randomly. We were successful in avoiding the charge in the end.

Same thing happened to me OP (well, not all the horrible year stuff preceding this, just the window). Just driving down the motorway and 'pop' the back window shattered.

It did stay in place until i got to work which was nice. Then collapsed.

This year can flip off.

You are lucky pre laminated glass, windscreens shattered like that when you were driving.

If you were unfortunate enough to go through one in an accident (pre-seat belts) the result was not great.

I was going to suggest that maybe Snap had shot it out but his air rifle hasn't enough poke.

This happened to me about thirty years ago. Driving to work in my 1.6GL Capri and BOOM! rear screen shattered. At the time, I thought the heater strip may have induced some kind of thermal stress. It was s frosty morning and it was switched on. But thinking back, it was more likely an air rifle sniper. I was driving through Blackley which is a very rough borough of Manchester.

Just as Lockdown V1 came in, our kitchen window went with a bang. The inner panel cracked straight across. Absolutely no reason, but wasn't half a boom.

And another exploding rear window anecdote from 2004.

Leaving our local tip in my Hyundai Tucson. Kersmash. Rear window all over the boot and back seats, brake light swinging on a coiled cable. Jeez. I honestly thought somebody had fired shotgun at the car.

In fact, I'd driven under the barrier with my tailgate open. Shit.

All fixed now. Nice, but rather disturbing, to hear other tales of glass based woe.

Many years ago me and my mate where throwing stickle bricks (remember those - what a stupid name) at each other in his very ornate and rather posh main living room.

All of a sudden one side of a 8 foot tall glass patio door thing shattered, scaring the crap out of us.

His mum came charging in from the kitchen and the problem was then obvious.

I was laying on the patio, on the ironing board, surrounded by glass - and a blue stickle brick.

I'd slipped on the thing (whilst scuffing there lovely wooden floor), grabbed the ironing board leant up next to the door and surfed on it straight through the glass.

Wasn't really a surprise the glass broke 😀

PS. This was 35 years ago and I called for him on my way to school the day after. His mum answered. Never called for him again after that morning.. oops

I had lightbulb explode over my head about 10 years ago, glass went all over the lounge and I cut my back on a shard removing my t shirt. I emailed Osram but they didnt get back to me. After a couple months I checked back over the email - I had used the phrase 'could they shed some light on why this had happened'. No wonder they didnt reply.

A workmate went out one morning and the back window on his audi a4 had broken with a hole in it (he thought someone had smashed it) called the window fitter who said it was common on some older cars (the aperture had started corroding putting more stress on the window)

Once left a can of beer in the back of a mates car, he was driving to work next day when it exploded, said he shat himself, his car stunk of beer for a while after that. 😆

I had a non drinker mate of mine generously leave a can of beer in my fridge when he was moving house. Opened it one night and had a swig and it was me that damn near exploded, luckily I was at home and a 2 sec sprint to the facilities which I made just before the world evacuated out of my...

20 mins later, I gingerly removed myself from the throne, checked the best before date on the can. 6 years out of date 🙁

So if anyone need to lose weight rapidly before an xc race, start storing those beer cans now 🙂

Toughened glass can sometimes shatter due to nickel-sulphide inclusion. (Small impurity from the manufacturing process).

If the shattered glass happens to stay in place within the frame, look for straight line cracks spreading out from a central point. That's your culprit.

Not sure if this would be the cause in the car glass incidents, but its quite common in buildings.

Rear window on Doblo hatchback has gone twice. The first time I was almost standing under it as I started to pull the panel down. OMG! I thought there had been a meteorite strike, I jumped out of my skin and I STILL HAVE 'KIN GLASS RATTLING INSIDE THE PANEL.

The second time, the whole lot just exploded one morning when I closed the Driver's door after getting in the car.

Jesus these stories don't give me any cause for optimism. Just about to move into a house that's got 14 Velux skylights and a huge number of massive doors and windows. Oh God.

Mine wasn't random, it was self inflicted...

I was mowing the front lawn and the the mower flicked a tiny bit of gravel through the drivers door window of the wife's car. It looked like an air rifle pellet had gone through and the glass all stayed in place despite being completely shattered. I scampered off for a binbag to collect it all. When I came back, the glass was all over the drivers seat and car interior... 🙄

Ours was a curved shower enclosure door! Guy fitting it properly shat himself, got a few small pieces in him as well so it must have been scary when it happened. I worked at a place that tested these things (different area of the business) and the testing manager said 1 in 1500 would fail in this way and far more if not handled 'correctly'.

One of the hospitals where my other half works suffers from exploding windows. Apparently it happens in the summer, when they are subjected to direct sunlight.
"Sunlight? In the midlands?! Never."

Toughened glass can sometimes shatter due to nickel-sulphide inclusion. (Small impurity from the manufacturing process).

One of the panes in one of our roof panels spontaneously went about 3 years after install. toughened glass is normally 'heat soaked' to try to filter out the stuff with faults but window company told me about 1 in 1000 panes still fails. Not covered by warranty, potentially not covered by insurance... (so if you do need to claim always be clear that you think something fell on it)

Quite often see one in glass sided office buildings within the first year or two.

That's quite apart from fitting issues of course

Could have been worse, you could have been this guy!

https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/aviation/a25780029/canopy-flies-off-f-15-landing/

My *front* windscreen completely shattered on a motorway once, bang and it was not there. I was a fairly inexperienced driver at the time and it was night. Fortunately I was just a couple of minutes from my exit and it wasn't raining so I cruised home gently the rest the way about 30mph. And spent the next several months picking up the bits of glass that had filled the interior. I don't think a stone hit it (m-way was very quiet), but it's possible.

Back when Kia first started selling the Sportage in the UK my parent's neighbour bought one. About 6 weeks after getting it the rear window was broken and had to be taped up. I asked him about it and he said they were sat on the boot floor with the boot lid as a sunshade at a car boot they had gone to while having a bit of food and ice cream when the glass just exploded and showered them in it as it fell out, one hell of a bang that the whole field heard!

As the model was new and rather rare it took over 3 months for a replacement glass to be sourced and fitted!

my t2 windscreen went while driving at 60mph (well on the clock! it was a 1970 van!) near portsmouth while i was in the middle lane. it stayed intact but went all crazy paved. i had a 50p sized clear bit to see through! that was flippng scary!

had to get my bro to bring a windcreen from portsmouth and get a fitter out late sunday eve to fit it. such a nighmare. didnt fancy driving back to brighton with no windscreen!

Smashed my rear passenger window earlier this year whilst strimming at work, I was 20m away from my car!

I smashed a shower screen whilst trying to ‘persuade’ the rubber seal to go all the way in. I was stood in the bath at the time and only wearing shorts. Getting from the bath to the bathroom door was painful. Like Bruce Willis in Die Hard. Picking bits of glass out of my feet afterwards was fun.

Yes I mowed over some pebbles on the lawn thinking "what if?" when Bang a pebble shot out and shattered the outside pane of the patio door. It was pretty stable so I stuck a piece of glass over the hole with silicon and it stayed like that for 18 months until we fitted a new patio door.

Oo ooo, another one.

Flying RC planes, the wind was blowing over the parking area so when on finals, you had to come in over the cars. A pal of mine planted his Wot4 in the tailgate window of another chums Mondog. Apparently he was picking glass out of the CD player (whatever that is) for months after. The Wot4 didn't survive...

I took a crate of homebrew cider to a friend as a homewarming gift. One bottle explodes. I think that I have managed to style it out by telling him that it was deliberate- like launching a ship with a bottle of champagne.

I’m sure I remember a story as a child about a bloke driving without a rear window as his had broken. When he got to motorway speed, two small children sat in the back (pre seat belts) got sucked out.

Looking back on it, it was probably my first experience of an urban myth

Nope pretty sure I remember seeing it on the news, range rover iirc, had a conversation with my dad about it as I was so upset

Does anyone else remember the entire roof of the then newly refurbished Warrender Park swimming pool in Edinburgh exploding?

Must've been some time in the late 80's or early 90's 🤔

Middle of a very hot summer and the refurb company hadn't designed in any thermal expansion tolerance 🤦‍♂️

My best mate blew the door glass out of a brand new hired tractor once when he was washing it down ready to go back to the hire company. Tiny, tiny speck of grit caught in the power washer nozzle came out like a flippin' bullet and shattered it 😳

£600 to sort that one out 🤮