Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Saga of the Exploding Moon Roof!

Today I had something very weird happen to me. I was pulling out of my driveway after lunch and headed back to work when I heard a strange noise. At first I was afraid my pearl necklace had broken and was rolling all over the van floor. Nope, pearl necklace still in tact. Then I hear something on the roof again. I opened the sliding moonroof cover above me to see if I had left something on the roof of the van and to my horror all I saw was a gaping HOLE and blue sky beyond that! Glass started falling in on me so I quickly shut the sliding cover and made a u-turn to head back home. Thankfully, my husband was off today and was preparing to go work out. When I got out of the van it looked like it had erupted from the INSIDE of the van! BIZARRE!

My husband's entire afternoon was taken up trying to find out the who, what, when, where, and how of getting it fixed. Bless his heart it was his only afternoon off and he had a lot of things to do. It is suppose to be fixed on Friday. Naturally, this is our family vehicle. Not likely six people can fit in the Toyota Corolla!

I am so thankful that we keep an emergency fund, since we gave up credit cards seven years ago. It made it not so upsetting, however, the first bid we heard was 1300.00 and two weeks...I was a little upset about that, but we finally came up with somewhere a lot less and the company was recommended by our friend and service guy.

Interestingly enough, many newer model luxury cars have been having the same problem. Ours is a 2001 Toyota Van...so who knows...maybe it is the extremely cold weather we had with the ice storm however, our van was safe in the garage during the storm.

Here are a couple of pictures. After driving it to the dealership the volcano shaped eruption had blown away and all you can see is the hole. Anyone else have this type of problem?

I am just thankful we were not tooling down the road going 75 and it explode. I read some horrible things about this today. You can see how the glass shattered. Also the gray right underneath the hole is the moonroof cover inside the van.

The last picture was my husband trying to show how the glass was angled up but it is not as clear. I wished I had taken a picture when I first saw it. It reminded me of a science fair project, it was so weird.



5 comments:

Vanessa {Bloom Right Here!} said...

That is so strange. I'm glad you were safe. That could be pretty scary driving down interstate!

P-Dog said...

I have a personal interest in this type of thing cause a) I work in the glass industry and b) my own Audi experienced the exploding moonroof.

There are 2 basic causes: 1. Impact or 2. Compression. Both types are easy to identify.

Impact failure exhibits a single divet/hole with cracks eminating out in a radiating pattern like a spider web. The glass also exhibits microfracture (like squares) that are start small near the impact and get bigger as they move outward.

Compression failure exhibit 1 or more large cracks that run parrallel to each other and the microfractures don't change size relative to their location. Holes can occur as the microfractures fall away from the glass.

The cause is important. Impact failure is just a risk of the road. Compression failure results from the moonroof assembly changing shape and is indicitive that it was not produced within spec. (It's also possible the moonroof pane was off-spec).

If it was a compression failure, that should be covered under the warranty (which probably is expired given the car's age) but if it happens again you may need to replace the assembly.

Unknown said...

Oh my gosh! The exact same thing happened to my 2007 Toyota Camry yesterday! I teach at a high school, and my car was parked near the field where the P.E. classes play sports, and where the football team practices after school. I was at school later than usual, and when I came out to my car, I had a hole much like the one in your picture. I tend to think something hit it. Hopefully the surveillance camera caught what happened. I went to the dealership body shop, and the guy thought it looked like something hit it, too.

the bright yellow room said...

OMG the SAME thing just happened to me!! on my 2010 Honda Accord. Crazy driving down the road heard a huge noise. Pulled over and now have this massive hole in my moon roof! NO explanation other than in imploded. Took it to the dealer and told them there is a forum where a guy had this happen on his 2008 Honda. Glad I found you story! thanks

the bright yellow room said...

OMG the same thing just happened to me last night. Driving along and boom. I pulled over and noticed my moon roof had imploded. Took it to the dealer this am. Got online and found a website where a guy said the same thing happened to his 2008 Honda. Crazy and very frightening.

I'm expecting the dealer to cover the cost.