Spontaneous rear window explosion

I have a new 2002 Nissan Altima. I am hoping you can shed some light on a problem I have with the automotive glass.

I recently opened my garage door to discover that the right rear window had exploded all over the garage (most of the glass was outside; very little glass in the back seat). As the garage was closed and locked and there were no signs of forced entry and nothing was taken from the car or garage, I assumed that the window was defective and must have exploded -- possibly from a build-up of heat -- it was at least 95 degrees the day of the breakage ... although the car was sheltered from direct sunlight. Nissan refused to replace the window under warranty as they claim there was no "identifiable defect". How can I possibly identify a defect in a shattered window?! Any suggestions as to what may have caused the window to break while parked in a locked garage?? How do I know if the other car windows are safe?

Guest User
Wed, 04/09/2002 - 07:03

Mostly the car manufacturers uses two different type of glass in an automobile. The front and the back glass is a so called laminated glass. This type of glass is composed by two glass sheets and a special interlayer. In case of the accident the interlayer holds the fragments together and continues to provide resistance to the passage of persons or objects, in case of a head impact, the injury sustained is minimised due to the flexibility of the windshield, etc.

The rear windows are composed by a so called tempered glass. This type of glass is obtained by subjecting a normal annealed glass to a special heat-treatment process in which the glass is heated to more than 650

Guest User
Thu, 19/09/2002 - 10:22

We frequently carry out fracture analysis on glass items including toughened panels where the most likely cause of breakage is a Nickel Sulphide inclusion.
Contact us if you are interested in determining whether the glass was faulty or not. www.glass-ts.com

Guest User
Tue, 22/04/2003 - 21:14

Reply to [B]humm[/B]:

> I have a new 2002 Nissan Altima. I am hoping you can shed some light on a problem I have with the automotive glass.
>
> I recently opened my garage door to discover that the right rear window had exploded all over the garage (most of the glass was outside; very little glass in the back seat). As the garage was closed and locked and there were no signs of forced entry and nothing was taken from the car or garage, I assumed that the window was defective and must have exploded -- possibly from a build-up of heat -- it was at least 95 degrees the day of the breakage ... although the car was sheltered from direct sunlight. Nissan refused to replace the window under warranty as they claim there was no "identifiable defect". How can I possibly identify a defect in a shattered window?! Any suggestions as to what may have caused the window to break while parked in a locked garage?? How do I know if the other car windows are safe?
>

Guest User
Tue, 22/04/2003 - 21:21

mamacita goofed. The previous message was not mine I hit the wrong button. I have a 2002 Nissan Sentra, driving home at around 10:30 PM --outside temp about 57 degrees when the rear wind shield just blows. Two holes about the size of a human head. Sheriff was called he did report and said he had never saw anything like it.When calling Nissan for replacement they refussed to take responsibility because they say it was hit with a foreign object. Now really one place I can see but two on opposite sides of the windshield, glass blew all the way in to front seat of car. Car is suppose to still be covered by warranty. Some warranty. Car has previously had water leaking into trunk which Nissan did fix. Could this have had anything to do with windoww exploding?

I have read and I agree to glassonweb.com's Terms of Use, including Privacy Policy and Cookie Use.
On