Capirato

There has to be an explanation.

~ Cap

SaniDel

Very interesting!

May we presume that this GX 460 has dual "spring-assisted" air cylinders to open the hatch, which is what we have on our 2010 GX 460? What I see happening is glass shattering, spilling on the ground outside the vehicle and the 'remnant' of the rear hatch ... including the rear window wiper ... quickly and fully opening. Notice that the 'spoiler' over the rear window that contains the wiper motor swings up ... minus the window glass! It appears that the glass broke, which released the latch that was on the bottom of the window glass and the 'unburdened' hatch swung to the full open position.

I played with the rear window of our 2010 GX 460 and believe that if the rear glass shattered at the bottom center, which would release the latch at the lower edge of the window glass, the hatch would be sufficiently 'unburdened' to swing to the full open position by itself, which is not how our GX operates normally ... I have to push slightly to raise the hatch. This would only happen if the glass shattering released the latch ... it would not happen if the glass was only 'holed' by a rock, a BB ... or a bullet.

The "spring-assisted" air cylinders on both side of the rear hatch opening attach to the glass. So, if the rear window was 'destroyed' ... all the window glass crumbled ... the two cylinders would 'flop' down rather than open the hatch. The video clearly shows the cylinder on the near (passenger) side of the vehicle still connected and pushing open the hatch. It's hard to estimate what would happen without the weight of the glass, but judging by how quickly the hatch opens in the video, my guess is that both cylinders stayed attached to the remaining glass. Judging by the amount of shattered glass spilled on the ground ... notice the large, dark pile that forms on what was clear asphalt, the cylinders had a lot less weight to lift, which is why the hatch opened so quickly ... safety glass is heavy.

So, it appears the glass 'failed' in the area of the latch on the lower edge of the hatch, the broken glass fell on the ground rather than inside the vehicle and the hatch opened quickly, as would be expected since the weight of the hatch was less. What caused the glass to fail ... well, we probably will never know, but it was better to have this happen when the vehicle was stationery and unoccupied ... get that glass replaced pronto!
Regards,

SaniDel


P.S. We open our rear hatch and close it with a slam several times every day ... for over four years.

danlnyc

A very legitimate explanation for what may have happened.

So what it comes down to is defective glass and/or installation near the latch, which I believe is the cause. Lexus should have taken full responsibility over this IMO.

As of this moment, the car is sitting inside the garage and the window has been replaced.

Thank you for taking the time to do this for me.

SaniDel

You are welcome. The advice you have received from others about subrogating the insurance claim seems appropriate, but I've never been in this predicament. Your insurance company is in a much better position to negotiate with Lexus than you are as they presumably do a lot of routine business on accident claims, especially if the insurance company is a major player in your state. You probably will never know who paid what ... only that the vehicle got a new window and you paid nothing, which is just as well!
Regards,

SaniDel


P.S. If this was a simple case of vandalism or theft such as a "smash and grab" the outcome would be predictable ... the insurance company and Lexus would "work it out" and you would be made whole. It is only because there is the suspicion of a defect that your specific situation has become complicated. Perhaps it would be better to consider it as a simple situation to spare you and your parents any further aggravation?

Randy B

Sanidel,

You do add clarity, wisdom, and words of comfort to this forum.

Randy B

KVA

I would write to Lexus directly with this video and raise a stink. You just bought a $60K vehicle with very high thresholds for part failures - they should do something.

Glad you got it fixed as that is immediately important but I wouldn't let Lexus off the hook. If you have any attorney friends, a nice note on letterhead usually gets folks attention.

SW17LS

Unfortunately this is not as unusual as you would think when it comes to tempered glass such as this, its the same thing as the "exploding sunroof" issue you read about from time to time. That is not a Toyota/Lexus issue.

Could be a flaw in the glass, even microscopic, could have been a small nick put in the glass perhaps even some time prior to this. Should Lexus have covered it? I don't know, its impossible to say what the cause is. Since you're insured and your glass coverage is at the worst comprehensive, I don't see how you're really damaged.

Just google "exploding rear window". First hit is a GMC forum, posts from vehicles of every make, a snopes article even.

Here's an article about it:

http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasc.../chem00506.htm

It happens.

Craig B

I used to own a video arcade and have seen tempered glass on a pinball machine shatter for no reason when I took the glass out to be cleaned. I've never had a car window shatter.

KVA

If the truck was months or even years old, I could relate - we are talking about a few weeks old vehicle. That is a problem for Lexus that they should cover. I wouldn't hesitate to send a nice note on legal letterhead to Lexus.

SW17LS

It doesn't really matter how old the vehicle is, the glass is older as its manufactured as a part. Age isn;'t the issue, sometimes this just happens with tempered glass. Can happen to any vehicle.

I certainly see an argument as to why Lexus should cover it, but they aren't going to. The OP is not damaged as he has insurance with probably zero or low deductible glass coverage. At some point it just becomes a question of how much energy someone wants to put into something "on principle".

I would just move on.

tennismom

My 2016 Lexus GX 460 back window also just exploded for no reason - causing extensive damage. Were you able to get anywhere with Lexus on this? I had my two dogs in the car who could have been hurt. It was an awful experience.

GXGSAm

You have to prove nothing else caused the "exploding glass" except the lexus truck itself. There has to be a "force" inside or outside the truck that caused the glass breakage. What should have been done was a careful search of debris in/out the vehicle. Watching video surveillance recording of the incident as it happened may not be enough. Try to look at the video, hours before the incident happened. Sometimes you may have to look at other camera recordings of nearby places.

My other theory is the rear glass was not properly installed. The mounting points like the hinges where metal screws or nuts and bolts were used, may have been tightened to a point small cracks began to develop and after a few compression/expansion due to weather changes or just driving around rough roads would further worsen the cracks. But the key here is there has to be some flexing and twisting motion of the glass where it was originally mounted. For example, the rear hatch was opened and when it was closed, an object was jammed between the door frame and the glass as it was being closed. The object has to create a great flexing of the glass, but short of not shattering it, until one day the whole glass assembly just exploded.

Exploding glass could be caused by a pointed object directly hitting the middle area of the entire glass structure with significant force. But as far as the flexing and bending theory, the glass breakage would be in much larger chunks, than little tiny pieces scattered around the rear area of the truck.

To make my story short, "somebody" caused the glass to break either unintentionally or deliberately.

JT4

When you say the rear window exploded for no reason, does that mean you were driving and all of a sudden the rear glass just exploded? Or were you closing the rear door and the window exploded?

Not saying you caused it to break, just trying to understand what happened.

NateJG

This is ancient history - but it seems to fit the scenarios being described above pretty well.

One of my summer (1969) jobs during my college years was as a production worker at the Chrysler McGraw Glass plant (https://www.allpar.com/corporate/fac...raw-glass.html) - where I had the opportunity to cut raw sheets of glass into shape prior to final forming/hardening the glass into vent, and side windows for Chrysler products.

Once cut to shape (a three-man process), the raw (untempered) glass had the edge (the part you lay your arm on) ground around the entire piece of glass, then two holes (for attachment to the window regulator) were drilled.

From there the glass went to the furnace, where it was put on an assembly line which heated the glass to a mild red color, during which the glass (held on the bottom edge) simply gravity formed into the requisite arch as it moved through the furnace.

Once leaving the furnace, while still quite hot, the pieces were mechanically stood on end - about ten inches apart - where they were quenched by cooling fans.

It is during this controlled cooling process that the inside of the glass versus the outside of the glass becomes a fight between tension and compression. It is this process that simultaneously gives the outside of the glass it's hardness - and sets up the physics for the glass to shatter into "rock salt" sized pieces - as opposed to the shards and daggers of regular raw glass (as mentioned above - and quite as you'd see in an old house window).

I had the opportunity (read: assignment) to work that line (the one at the end of the tempering process) - which was also a three-man process where we'd each take the third piece of glass (I'd take 1, he'd take 2, and he'd take the third) by reaching between the hot pieces of glass, lift up the glass, and put it on a pallet of glass - one pallet/stack behind each of the three of us - separated by a thin sheet of paper (to protect the glass from scratching).

At the end of this short line stood a member of the quality control department whose job was to ensure that the batch of glass was adequately tempered via this process:

One side of the glass was covered by wide masking tape. Using a small, regular-looking pliers, the worker would grab the corner of the glass and "tweak" it with the pliers. If the glass was tempered correctly, the entire sheet of glass would turn into rock salt - sized pieces. The batch of glass was deemed OK.

If, however, the glass showed any arches of glass (and I did see this occur), the batch of glass was destroyed as being defective.

Now, the above narrative being a long walk around the barn to get to this - one of the surprising (to the three of us on the tempering line) was that sometimes when we're reaching (one arm) between the hot panes of glass to pick up a piece of cooling glass - several times during a shift, the glass would merely turn into rock salt in our hand!

Think holding your right arm straight out in front of you, picking up a RX 350 sized side window (called sidelight), carefully backing up with the glass so as to not hit one of the pieces next to it (easier if you were man number 3, vs the first guy to pick up glass) - and having that 10 pound glass simply disappear in your arms! Now consider where all that glass went - sometimes all over you, your hair, face, floor.

What was also not-too-uncommon was for the glass to spontaneously go "poof" and set up an immediate chain reaction which takes out several panes of glass (all stacked on edge waiting for us to pull and stack them).

Mind you, this was back in 1969 - and the glass panels were the thickness of the current RX sandwich front seat sidelight - not the thinner glass currently used in the rest of the cars.

This glass tempering process now made sense to me - and after obtaining some answers to questions that I had relating to personally watching the backlight of a car immediately in front of the one in which I was traveling (prior to being old enough to legally drive) that exploded outward in the heat of a summer's day - just like was described by the OP.

In my experience and observation, glass that explodes outward likely did so due to expansion of the glass under heat; whereas I would expect that glass (not the sandwich type as used in the windshield (windscreen) or front windows (sidelight) of the RX - that's a different narrative) that is shot by a BB or rock or meteorite would be likely to merely shatter into rock-salt-sized pieces - and remain largely in place (or fall in due to gravity).

I didn't bother to take the time to look at how the window was held in on the OP's car (I.e.: is it glued in place? Is it a moveable window?) - so, as with all of my posts, take it for it's entertainment value.

I have a sick funny story about one production line glass injury causing another - if anyone's still reading.

danlnyc

I'm still here and yea I would like to read about your funny story lol.

Updates since my last post: Mom got rid of the GX and purchased another car, definitely not Lexus. I'm not sure what happened to the youtube link but I just reuploaded it:
Dad got a new ES350H though, he was very impressed with the luxury and the gas mileage.