Mystery shattering rear glass

[puma90]

Driving along a bitumen road at 35km/h in my MY10 D90, no bumps and pop the rear windscreen completely shatters. No impact, no bump. The rear glass was replaced 18months ago by Austral because of a problem with the high mounted brake light. My question is 2 fold; has anyone else encountered this problem and what might have caused the issue. I am now out of warranty so am up for about $650 to replace but i want to make sure it doesn't happen again. Thanks in advance for the illumination.

[slug_burner]

Have you got a big tyres? Have you got your spare hanging off the door? A bit of a long shot but the door frames used to crack due to the weight of the tyre hanging on the door. If the frame has moved it could crack the glass. Spare wheel carriers helped to reduce the incidence of cracking door frames. I am not sure but I think that LR may have strengthened the back door and you traveling on bitumen makes it more of a long shot.

[flagg]

Check with your insurance provider, mine does excess free glass replacement.

[isuzurover]

Towing a trailer?

Work vehicles used outback towing box/camper trailers used to constantly smash rear windscreens - rock bounces off trailer and ricochets into winscreen.

[superquag]

... had a rock take out a tail-light, same cause...

$650 for a rear windscreen ? ouch... what's it made of, - bullet-proof optical glass???

[alittlebitconcerned]

What a strange coincidence. I awoke to find the rear windscreen on my 07 Puma shattered one morning last December. Although shattered it held it's shape and you could see the radiating lines of multiple cracks originating from the break light near the top of the windscreen. There were no impact marks or chips from the glass, just a windscreen in a thousand pieces but still holding together. I've still got no idea what caused it as it wasn't like that when I left it the night before.

[miller.rhys]

On a previous car I owned not land rover I had a rear window break overnight for no apparent reason. When it was removed the only thing I could find was a small amount of rust in the bottom frame. It seems this small deflection in the glass was enough to crack it.


I also recently took out a shower screen. Unfortunately in our area you cannot recycle plate glass in the bins and on ringing the recycle centre they told be to break it up and put it in the bin. Turns out the glass was tempered like in some car windows and despite using in a hammer I was unable to break it hitting the flat surface. I recalled hearing tempered glass was very fragile if hit on the end. With only the slightest tap of the hammer on the end the piece shattered into 1000's of pieces.


It doesn't seem to take much of the glass is hit or stressed in just the right spot to make it shatter.

[Defender Mike]

My father in law had the same with a ford / Mazda ute years ago. His broke when the tight fitting glass expanded on a hot day. Glass is funny stuff no 2 pieces break the same way some say its a liquid with surface tension holding it all together.

[Blknight.aus]

it is, go have a look at a really old house with orignal glass and you can see it welling at the bottom and stretching at the top...

a very slight bending effort on a straight piece of glass with a good thermal shock is enough to do it as is a pressure change (say by opening a window while at sped or having the wind gust from a head wind to a side wind blowing into the open window and trying to inflate the car)

but you try to break a piece of glass when its an emergency
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBuAfIjsFVk]epic fight scene top secret!.avi - YouTube[/ame]

[skidrov]

OK, interesting... My MY10 110 had its rear windscreen (i.e. the rear door glass) suddenly break for no apparent reason too... I did not see it happen, and I must admit that it was left in a suburban carpark when it occurred (where, I agree, anything can go down) but it wasn't the world's wildest area (Malvern, VIC, just off Glenferrie Rd.). It also wasn't the world's hottest day by any stretch (about 2 months ago, well away from Melbourne's recent heatwave). The break seemed to be radiating from the high-mounted stop light but not entirely sure - hard to tell.

Insurance company covered it for "free" with the touted prices being similar to those quoted by other posters, glass installed looks to be genuine, with Land Rover/Pilkington branding.

It's been nagging at my tiny mind, what might have occurred; we don't exactly have a full outbreak here, but it's interesting that it's not just one of us...