My Glass Roof Has Just Expoloded - Has Yours?

[dtj01]

Hi there,

I own a 55 plate Oasis 1.5 DCi with full glass panoramic roof. The first half of the roof tilts and slides and the second half is static.

This evening I was driving home and bang - my roof shattered!
There was no other vehicle on the road and I was travelling at approx 30mph (just come off a round about).

The crazy thing is when I drive the car I always have the sun shield rolled back - however my wife had been driving the car and it was closed. If it wasn't closed then my 11 week old baby, who was in the passenger seat and myself, would have been showered in broken glass - I thank my wife for being stuck in her ways, if the sun shield was not there I dread to think the injuries my baby girl would have suffered.

It was a hot evening. The car was sat in a car park for about one hour and I had driven it approx three miles with the air con on.

Now here's my theory: The hot weather has heated the glass. The glass is a safety glass, which due to the design, is several sheets of thin glass laminated together to form the shape. I turn on my air con causing the inside of the glass to cool rapidly whilst the outside is still hot - the glass contracts and then shatters.

Our other car, wait for it, is a Smart Car and it to has a full glass roof. I have heard that in hot weather they to have this issue of shattering roofs - but so far, five years on, our Smart's glass roof hasn't shattered (touch wood). I have also done a quick internet search to reveal that Land Rover has the very same issue with its new Discovery glass roof.

At the time it happened the local Renault garage was closed so we are off there tomorrow to see if they can fix it. I have the roof in bits in a box - I'll return it and ask for a new one!

Has anyone heard of anything similar?

I can supply pictures if I could work out how to insert them!

[Ray]

I've heard of rear windscreens shattering (from the heat expansion in winter)....

and as for sunroofs... it's a first i've heard on the Megane. Previously, I've heard of many a Smart car sunroof shattering due to it's design and inability to withstand stone chips from cars in front... however you say there were no cars in front of you...

re: pics, you need to upload them to a hosting site (imageshack for example, or email them to me and i'll host them if u want). get the URL and paste it in here between [IMG] tags. there's an explaination in the FAQ section.

[IainMW]

Firstly welcome to the Forum

Like Ray said I've never heard of this happening on a Megane? Thank god you and your daughter are OK, this could as I'm sure your are very aware have been much worse, had there been more traffic around you.

Why it shatted, you might never know? I can only think that it may have had a manufacturing defect in the roof that was a week point or that the roof when it was opened and closed the last time did not close completely, possibly putting undue stress on it that caused it to explode.

Hopefully somebody else will be along shortly to offer more advice, Webcode or LGC (maybe )

Hope you get to the bottom of this soon, but I think a call to RCS is definately called for. In the Dealers section on the forum is a thread on letters of complaint.

Iain

[soterman]

This has happened to a member of the GRC (https://www.greekrenaultclub.gr). The glass roof needed some kind or repair or maintanance, some clever technician user double sided sticky paper instead of the proper 2 ingredient epoxy glue. She is taking legal action and she is having the car replaced.

This is the link for the thread, you don't need to register, but I don't know if altavista or google can translate greek to english. https://www.greekrenaultclub.gr/phpbb/vi ... .php?t=220

[dtj01]

Thanks for the responses.
We have phoned Renault this morning and apparently glass is only covered under warrenty for six months and our car is 8 months old!

However due to the serious nature if the fault they are coming to collect the car and get us a hire car. We are going to keep on a Renault to do something about this issue.

I know Smart were doing a kit (like clear sticky back plastic) that you can put over the roof - But they still charge you for it! I still have'nt got this on my Smart - after this incident I will order mine today.

I would like to correct my initial statement - the glass roof is toughened galss and not laminated as I thought. If it was laminted (like the windscreen) it would not shatter - why don't they do this? I'll tell you why cost! Toughened glass is heated and air quenched, laminated glass is more expensive to produce due to the processes involved.

Needless to say we are still a bit shaken by the whole thing.

I'll keep you posted and please keep the comments coming.

[Gillykid]

Firstly, welcome and glad to hear no one was hurt.

This is very worrying and I hope Renault are going to get to the bottom of this. A lot of the Renaults I have seen have this option, and i would be interested to see if it effects the Renault CC too as the folding roof is also glass.....

[omar]

Thanks for the responses.
We have phoned Renault this morning and apparently glass is only covered under warrenty for six months and our car is 8 months old!

However due to the serious nature if the fault they are coming to collect the car and get us a hire car. We are going to keep on a Renault to do something about this issue.

I hope you don't mean to say that you're actually going to have to pay for the repair?! That is clearly a major safety issue & manufacturing or design fault and I'm sure they will replace the entire mechanism if pressed. (I had a whole new mechanism early last year because it just wouldn't close tightly enough and whistled on the motorway and no amount of adjustments would fix it).

[DaveP]

The most common failure of toughened glass in buildings is due to Nickel Sulfide inclusions in the glass. Glass that has inclusions can sometimes last for many years then shatter for no other reason. To avoid this it is possible to specify "heat soaked" glass. Basically, heat soaking involves heating the glass up and leaving it for about two hours and allowing it to cool naturally (after the toughening process) If there are inclusions the glass will break. Doing this avoids any risk of it breaking later when, e.g. installed at height overhead. In safety critical areas it is common to laminate a sheet of toughened with another type of glass such that if either or even both break then the plastic interlayer holds it all together. I could be wrong but it seems that your glass may have had nickel sulfide inclusions.

[europa]

Now here's my theory: The hot weather has heated the glass. The glass is a safety glass, which due to the design, is several sheets of thin glass laminated together to form the shape. I turn on my air con causing the inside of the glass to cool rapidly whilst the outside is still hot - the glass contracts and then shatters.

Our Black Meg Dynamique with glass sunroof has survived the Australian summer with no glass failure - outside temperatures of 40+ degrees and airconditioning on full - I think there may be another cause...

[Stranger]

That's one scary experience and I'm glad that everyone is ok after it.

I do hope you get some sucess with renault and your dealership as I think it'd be a travesty bordering on negligence, if they weren't to replace anything which has been affected foc.

[navid.v]

Thanks God your wife and the baby are alright.have you managed to sort the photos out?if not I am sure there are loads of people who can help,just ask.cheers.

[dtj01]

Thanks for the comments

Well what can I say - just what to update you all on the progress of the glass roof and other tales of the Megane glass.

The dealer has replaced the glass roof for free & provided us with a hire car whilst it was off the road - so all is good there. We have found out there have been two other incidents with the glass roofs - one on the motorway. Again luckily the driver had the roller blind closed.

With the support of our dealer we would like to demonstrate to the Renualt designers and material engineers that this is an issue to be taken very seriously. To help us acheive this we need you to notify us if there is any other incidents involving glass roofs that you are aware of.

Our troubles with this car are not over - please read on:

We have had the car back now for four days and today we were enjoying a day out in the thunder storms. After getting into the car, wet, we decided to turn on the heated rear window and guess what?
THE REAR WINDOW SHATTERED!:( Thats right! The rear window shattered, we could'nt believe it either.

We were sat in a queue of traffic - going no where - I turned on the heater and bang!

This time my wife and daughter were in the back seats (trying to keep away from the glass roof). Seriously I'm not taking the mickey and its not April the 1st - I still can't believe that this has happened on the same car. We even have independent witnesses.

I think someone is trying to tell us that this is not the car for us!

On Thursday we sent a letter to Renault UK asking them why the roof glass is not laminated - I think I need to send a new letter.

My wife who was scared of driving the car due to the glass roof shattering - she now terrified of the car.

We drove the car to the dealer who could'nt believe it and have given us a Modus as a short term fix.

I promise that I will put the pictures on the website soon, even the ones of the rear glass.

[Phil_G]

Hiya,

DTJ01 - send me the pictures Phil.grimsey@btopenworld.com. I can easily host them for you


I will ring you later on!

Cheers

Phil

[soterman]

Jesus Christ!

Sympathies for all your troubles mate, take the car and ram the dealership!!!

[europa]

dtj01, sounds like you getting all the bad luck.

"ramming the dealership" won't fix it though