We had a bad freeze in the area over the weekend
(single digit low), and my driver side window
shattered. I've never seen anything like it. Not a
piece of glass remaining larger then 1/4 inch. The
window was still intact, just cracked over the whole
surface. This is a 2001 with 22,000 so I am hoping
that Toyota will replace it.
I have seen this only once. I was on vacation in florida and we had a cool night. Not single digits but 45 or 50. Next morning we but the rear defrost on for the window (rental,Nissan Maxima). Open the trunk to put some golf clubs in and heard a loup POP. The rear window was in 10,000 pieces. A few came off but the rest of the window was intact . Weird.
I had EXACTLY the same thing happen to one of my windows, but it wasn't the Tundra window, it was the passenger side camper window of my Snugtop camper.
Insurance replaced it but I had to pay my $100 deductable.
Did you watch it break? Since it's cold out there, this probably isn't the case, but do you have punk kids running around? I know that a pebble size piece of porcelain thrown at a window can spider it in an instant. Theives use this to break into cars since it is very quite and effotless. Just a though.....
No...I didn't see it break, and to this day I don't know what caused it. The window looked really strange, with small cracks over virtually the ENTIRE window. Not an inch untouched.
I'm figuring it must have been some defect in the window from day one. The window was approximately 1 1/2 years old, so I would have thought a defect would have shown up before then. Maybe I did take a hit from a pebble or stone from the freeway. I just don't know.
Had the same thing happen to a camper window of mine but I had hit it really hard a week earlier with a sharp point, then the temp dropped while in Montana and the whole thing was a spider web one morning but it didn't shatter. I had put window film on the inside of the window and it kept in one piece. I was short on cash at the time and just put some duct tape over the window outside and the film on the inside kept in one piece for over a year until I replaced it. In fact it never broke up until I hit it with a hammer to remove the window. I even 4 wheeled with in, just had a limited visibility.
I was standing about 10 feet from a Plymouth Caravan when the back window exploded - from heat not from cold! My first thought was someone shot it out but it was cause from the temp here in fun in the sun. Tempature in the summer in AZ is hot! This window shattered completely.
I never even cracked a window when I lived in ND from the cold.
Car windows are supposed to shatter when a crack or fracture occured, for safety reasons. It also shattered because of the sudden change in temperature. Most northern climate people are well aware of this.
I've seen this with one car that went into the carwash when it was 5 degrees and the rear window shattered as soon as the warm water touched it, he ended up soaked and wet and cold.
One morning I've also witness a lady who didn't have an window scraper, she turn her car on and ran inside. I thought see was gonna let her car warmup, 3 minutes later she came out with a steaming pot of water. I knew exactly what was gonna happen. She stood next to the driver mirror and poured away. All you here was tick and tacks. You know what happened there.
Here's something reallly neat if yopu live up north. When it's real cold out like 0 degrees F or lower, boil some water till it's bubbling hot. Take the boiling pot outside and toss the hot boiling water into the air and watch it vaporize, not a single drop left, well maybe a little.
Shattered window
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