Exploding window

[Depotchick]

A few days ago I was waiting to pull into traffic when my rear window exploded. (Yukon 2004). There was no one around. No houses and no kids except a toddler with her grandma. The temp had not changed. It sounded like an explosion. Has anyone else had this happen?

 

[HiHoeSilver]

A few days ago I was waiting to pull into traffic when my rear window exploded. (Yukon 2004). There was no one around. No houses and no kids except a toddler with her grandma. The temp had not changed. It sounded like an explosion. Has anyone else had this happen? View attachment 183484

There was a thread.... I think it was guys finding them broken upon returning to their parked trucks... Do some searching.

 

[ScottyBoy]

I'm not 100% sure on this, but it "might" have something to do with the way the hinges and the lift supports attach to the glass. I remember reading somewhere that GM discovered a problem with the way it was designed, the rubber was coming detached from the glass. When the rubber started coming off the glass, it would cause stress on the hinge points, and where the lift supports attach to the window. In 2005 they redesigned the rear window glass to a new "frameless" design. Instead of the hinges, the latch, and lift supports attached by the glued rubber frame, they are now actually bolted through the glass with the new design. If you notice on some 2005 and 2006 models, the rear glass will have a black plastic "shroud" across the top of the glass, this is a cover to hide the hinges that are bolted through the glass. Whether or not this has anything to do with the cause of your window exploding is anyone's guess, but I just thought I'd mention it as it's a possibility.
I also remember in the 90's my dad had a Chevy Blazer and he had the same issue. For some reason he went through 3 windows in a little over a year. I remember the first two times the glass was broken when we returned to the parked truck. But then the third time, the window "exploded" when my Dad tried to close it. I was standing right next to it, and I saw it clearly. He put his hand of the glass and went to push it down to close it and it just exploded. We initially thought that he slammed it or something, but we saw that it had not even latched shut before it broke. The dealership and the glass shop both said that the lift supports had too much "pressure" and that's what caused it to break.

 

[08HoeCD]

Tempered glass can shatter spontaneously. It happens with car windows and sunroofs, shower doors, oven doors, table tops, etc. It's rare, but it happens.

The tempering process creates tension and compression, which gives tempered glass a high surface strength. But this also stores energy within the glass itself. If an internal occlusion exists, which is very difficult to detect, it can ultimately trigger a failure. The result: the failure allows the stored energy to be released, causing what looks like an explosion.

 

[Danny3737]

I've seen it happen twice, both times it had to do with the wrong type of window tint installed.

 

[02Lightning]

I've seen it happen twice, both times it had to do with the wrong type of window tint installed.

What is the wrong type of window tint?

 

[Danny3737]

I'm not sure of the type that was used, but like 08Hoe said, it created built up energy within the glass causing it to explode. It's more common than you would think

 

[08HoeCD]

I do business handling thousands of pieces of tempered glass annually. It happens.

 

[02Lightning]

I'm not sure of the type that was used, but like 08Hoe said, it created built up energy within the glass causing it to explode. It's more common than you would think

Is there a type of window tint that will not cause tempered glass to break?

 

[ezstriper]

the limo black that does not reflect sunlight can cause the glass to overheat in the sun

 

[PNWMuseumman]

I totally had this happen in my '90 Celebrity Wagon a couple years ago. Driving to work one morning on the freeway, moved into the right lane for my exit and BAM, rear glass shattered, no rhyme or reason. Good times trying to find a replacement for a fairly rare (not in a good way though) station wagon hatch...

 

[ScottyBoy]

I totally had this happen in my '90 Celebrity Wagon a couple years ago. Driving to work one morning on the freeway, moved into the right lane for my exit and BAM, rear glass shattered, no rhyme or reason. Good times trying to find a replacement for a fairly rare (not in a good way though) station wagon hatch...

My older brother had a 86 or 87 Celebrity wagon. It was a "Eurosport Wagon". That thing was like a tank. He treated it like crap and that engine just wouldn't die. The AC broke, the power steering pump and rack went out (so you needed BOTH arms to steer that *****) and one of the windows would not roll up. He had two broken engine mounts. He had one dead cylinder due to a stuck valve, so it was only running on 5 cylinders. But he kept driving the hell out of it. I know he drove it at least til around 2000 or 2001 or so. The final nail in the coffin was that he slammed into a pothole so hard that he broke a huge hole in the oil pan. And if I remember correctly, the engine had a crossmember under it so the engine needed to be lifted up and out of the car to get the oil pan off. He just ended up junking the car at that point because there was so much other stuff wrong with it besides the oil pan. It just wasn't worth fixing at that point.

 

[PNWMuseumman]

My older brother had a 86 or 87 Celebrity wagon. It was a "Eurosport Wagon". That thing was like a tank. He treated it like crap and that engine just wouldn't die. The AC broke, the power steering pump and rack went out (so you needed BOTH arms to steer that *****) and one of the windows would not roll up. He had two broken engine mounts. He had one dead cylinder due to a stuck valve, so it was only running on 5 cylinders. But he kept driving the hell out of it. I know he drove it at least til around 2000 or 2001 or so. The final nail in the coffin was that he slammed into a pothole so hard that he broke a huge hole in the oil pan. And if I remember correctly, the engine had a crossmember under it so the engine needed to be lifted up and out of the car to get the oil pan off. He just ended up junking the car at that point because there was so much other stuff wrong with it besides the oil pan. It just wasn't worth fixing at that point.

Oh nice! I always liked the Eurosports the little extra body kit and the different wheels were cool. My Celeb was a great car, my grandfather bought it 3 months before I was born, so I grew up with that car. I love the third row that faced backwards! I got it from my Grandma the week before I went to college (Didn't want to take my '67 Mustang to a snowy college town.) But that car was freaking AWESOME. I had seatbelts for 8 people, no cupholders, but like 6 ash-trays... Apparently that was the priority in the late 80's. It had the 3.1L fuel injected engine that was an absolute gem! I ran it to about 180,000 miles and then I couldn't turn down a free 02 Z71 Hoe from my parents, so the wagon had to go. I was so sad to see it go, but it went to a good home in my town so I keep an eye out for it.

It's really too bad most of the celebrities on the road look like they've been treated like total crap. Those were great motors that would run for just about ever as long as you took half-decent care of it. Nobody ever believed me when I'd tell them I had a 27 year old station wagon that would consistently do 24 miles to the gallon.

Ugh... There I go down memory lane...

 

[ScottyBoy]

Yeah, oh the memories.....
I remember we had a MASSIVE stereo system in that thing at one time. Back then he was rolling an Alpine tape deck, Kenwood door speakers, and a huge MTX amp and speaker box. But he quickly removed it all when someone tried breaking in his car. LOL

 

[adventurenali92]

Interesting thread to read through. I also read somewhere here that the NBS hatch up to the 2004 models had issues where the hinges that it goes up and down on delaminate from the glass causing them to come off. That’s crazy. I have a 2006 and I had the hatch with the little plastic handle bolted through bottom portion of the glass, and the big plastic trim piece and the top. When I swapped in an esky third, I couldnt find an esky third off a 2005 or 2096. They were all pre 2005. So I ended up doing a whole hatch swap, cuz both my esky third tail light and hatch ended up coming off of 2004 models. So I have a 2006 truck with a 2004 hatch with the little rubber edge going around and no handle bolted through the glass at the bottom. I don’t mind the 2004 hatch cuz I hated the little handle bolted through. It always trapped a ton of dirt and was kind of a pain whenever I cleaned my tailgate and glass. I hope I don’t have any of the 2004 hatch issues. That would suck. I haven’t had any yet....

 

[Kingfish585]

holy cow, I've never seen that happen. Just driving along and boom back window explodes. this just made be inspect my truck. I always close it with the little handle and never on the glass. it could also be cause the two struts that hold it up may have a lot of force on a otherwise frameless window.

 

[Crcz71]

Mine did this last winter. It had snowed some and iced over. Went to warm it up had the rear defroster on and after about ten minutes looked outside to see the glass had exploded. Not disputing the whole Tint possibility but not sure if it really played a role in this. The window had limo tint on it for two years prior to this happening. Insurance covered it but it was replaced with a different style that doesn’t have the rubber around the edges.

 

[Ramiro Calderon]

Tahoe rear defroster tab broke off the glass so I tried fixing it by soldering it back to the glass so the truck was in the garage that next day I turned on the defroster on my way to work to test it out it roughly about 35° and it shattered into pieces while I was at work the only thing I could think of its the soldered because it happen after the first use of the defroster. I attached a picture of the different style of rear window available for my 04 tahoe

 

[willfalcon]

I had an 02 suburban, one day the passenger side rear door window shattered going 70 mph down the interstate. Didn’t hit a big bump, wasn’t behind a dump truck, nothing. When I stopped to look, it looked like someone had kicked it out from the inside. The outer pieces that were still attached to the door were bent outward. Talking to people, we had wondered about air pressure... maybe some kind of freak instance where the air pressure dropped outside that window just enough at just the right time, along with some kind of weakness in the window and boom.

 

[justjohn2000]

A few days ago I was waiting to pull into traffic when my rear window exploded. (Yukon 2004). There was no one around. No houses and no kids except a toddler with her grandma. The temp had not changed. It sounded like an explosion. Has anyone else had this happen? View attachment 183484

can you call me at 678-209-3794? This happened to me today, 8-5-2021 and I came across this chat forum.