2003 Renault Scenic from UK and Ireland - Comments

Whilst travelling at 70 mph on the motorway for absolutely no obvious reason the sunroof imploded inwards with some glass exploding outwards. The two main struts were buckled and ended up in the car. On later inspection there were no signs of any debris from the road such as stones which could explain the accident. The explosion in the car was so loud I thought my eardrums had burst. Luckily no one was badly hurt other than some slight scratches and bruising.

Renault's official line is that it was a stone or some other missile and I must therefore seek repair costs through my insurance company. This runs in direct contradiction to what Renault's own technical inspector said to me at the dealership when he catagorically stated it could not have been a stone as the projection of such a missile from the road would have hit the windscreen or bodywork. I would love to hear from any one who has had any similar accident or from a technical expert who might cast some light on wether the extremely loud exposion could be caused throug a cracking of the sun shield. I believe there was a build up of pressure which caused the struts to buckle and then brake creating the implosion / explosion. This thereby a result of a design flaw. This accident could have easily killed me and my family and yet Renault are not interested in investigating things further. Disgraceful when they sell their cars on the attention they pay to safety.

I also have had an exploding sunroof - 70 mile an hour. Car has only 2000 miles. Disgraceful customer services, and poor feedback from renault. Have not even opened sunroof since delivery!!!

Would welcome any other comments from other drivers as this is clearly a manufacturing issue, yet they do not widh to now. I am now faced with the full cost or claiming against my insurance - ironically also with renault - who asked me to called back tomorrow after the 7th call!! email john.painter@ntlworld.com.

I own a 2004 Jaguar X type. While I was driving down the highway at 65 mph with the windows open my sunroof just exploded. Believe it or not Jaguar denied any responsibility and suggested that I am lying and that I should go through my insurance for any claim.

The shattering of the sunroof can happen if the glass is already scratched or chipped. You might not have noticed a tiny chip that was already there.

When subject to a little extra stress from heat, vibration or aerodynamic loads the tempered glass of the sunroof can shatter.

Side windows and rear screen are also made of tempered glass.

The windshield is made from laminated glass which can crack, but never shatters.

The sunroof should really be made from laminated glass for safety reasons, a shattering sunroof could so shock a driver that he might have an accident, but as it's a cost issue the manufacturers will not do that unless they are legislated into it.

The rear screen of my wife's car shattered when it was parked in our garage! No possibility for vandalism there. Insurance paid up.

These things do happen, but rarely.

Bonded windshield/backlights can crack or shatter from corrosion of the frame where water has found a section improperly bonded and paint is missing. It only takes a tiny scratch exposing bare metal to facilitate corrosion. Metal expands with rusting and stresses the glass locally. The glass around the corroded area can't move so the glass is subject to very high stresses and breaks.

Renault could sensibly argue that the glass could have already been damaged by a stone chip so it's not unreasonable of them to refuse liability and after all, this is why you have insurance.

I would like all glass in a car to be of the laminated type.

It would be much tougher to break into such a car.

Scariest time of my life was when an angry mob stoned my car in Indonesia.

The front windshield of the Toyota Crown was laminated and this prevented a big rock from penetrating the windshield.

Driver's side window shattered from a small stone and I got a few small cuts.

Pity I had removed the solarfilm from the driver's door window only a few days earlier to improve nighttime visibility as this would have helped contain flying glass shards.

A safety reason for not having side windows laminated could be that in the event of a crash and the doors are not openable, the occupants or rescuers could break the glass and climb out.

This would be very difficult to do if the glass were laminated.

My present 10-year-old car has double-glazing on the side and back windows.

This gives some degree of protection as it's highly unlikely both layers would be shattered by a flying stone.

Sunroof is metal, but I'd prefer a glass one.

Further to my lengthy post above, since I've plenty of time on my hands, I've entered "shattered sunroof" into a search engine and found dozens of similar cases involving many different manufacturers.

It seems common throughout that dealers will deny any responsibility and that this damage can be covered by your car insurance.

Some people have had the sunroof shatter when they slam the car door, suggesting the glass was already highly stressed or damaged and the change in air pressure by slamming the door was enough to finish it off.

There are a few cases where drivers know that a flying stone landed on the roof and that did the damage.

If you ever drive with the sun visor slid back, it might be a good idea, if you're worried about this problem ever happening, to get the glass covered with a tinted film on the inside as this will tend to hold all those thousands of pieces of broken glass together and prevent injury.

Doesn't cost much.

It's unreasonable to say that Renault do not care about safety.

Now this problem has been shown to be so widespread, has it put anyone off having a glass sunroof on their next car?

The solarfilm idea is brilliant.

We have a 2004 Jaguar X-type. Yesterday, November 4, 2006, the sunroof suddenly exploded.

Another Jaguar owner posted a comment describing a similar experience. If the person who posted that comment sees this message, we would appreciate hearing from him about how the situation was handled by Jaguar. Did the company fix his sunroof, or disclaim responsibility for the problem?

My Renault Modus is 18 months old and I was driving at 60mph with no other traffic in sight when my sunroof exploded. The glass came in and covered me. The dealer where I bought it from repaired it so I didn't have to claim on my insurance, but said that he didn't know of any other Renault customers that had had this problem perhaps he should have a look on here.

My 2005 Megane Oasis had a glass roof that shattered when vehicle was travelling at 30mph with my 6 week old baby in a recumbent seat in front passenger side. Dealership repaired it, returned the car to us and a week later the rear window exploded. You might consider us to be unlucky people - we certainly did. Renault record warranty faults centrally so they must have intelligence on this. We ended up with a new car and we are very relieved, I will never buy a car with a glass roof again, irrespective of the manufacturer, a web search shows why, it isn't limited to Renault. I would like to see some research commissioned by the Vehicle Traders Association or similar organisation independent and qualified to examine the safety of such glass roofed cars.

We had a similar issue with the sunroof on our Audi Allroad.

It is very common for the dealer/manufacturer to blame the explosion on outside influence (either there or from a pre-existing crack). That's because they use tempered glass to save money and it breaks pretty easily and is especially susceptable to compression cracking.

This occurs when the frame the glass sits in is to tight or changes shape and breaks the glass. U.S. Law has pretty firmly established this as a defect, especially in the case of car doors.

Compression cracks vs. impact cracks are pretty easy to tell apart. impact cracks have a single mark with a spiderweb pattern of major cracks radiating out from the impact. Compression cracks present 1 or more major cracks that run perpendicular to each other.

Don't let the dealer/mnfg push you around or turn a compression crack into the insurance. First off it's bogus on thier part and 2nd replacing the pane won't fix the problem of compression.. the frame needs to be replaced.

We ended up taking Audi to court (less over the cost as much as the safety issue). Not only did we win but I kind of enjoyed listening to the judge berate Audi's representatives .

We picked up our brand new Clio from the dealership Saturday the following afternoon after taking our car for a drive in the countryside driving along at 40miles an hour the sunroof exploded all over my husband and I. No Houses, people, cars, trucks, trees or anything seen around for miles. No rocks or anything found inside the car. Just glass all over us. Not what you expect to happen from a new car.

I have a Renault scenic and the sunroof exploded all over myself, my 6 year old and my 1 year old this morning on the way to school. Sounded like a bomb had gone off... we were all so scared... so far Renault/Enfield have been useless as I have been forced to hire a car from them costing me £25.00 a day while they investigate.

Will keep you posted on the outcome.

Tam.

The sunroof on my 57 Grand Scenic exploded yesterday whilst on the motorway at about 65mph. It sounded like a gun going off in the car and showered my daughter and I in glass, scaring her considerably. There was no external impact involved, as I would have seen any object coming towards the car as my forward speed would be greater than the falling velocity of any object.

Interestingly, my car had been making knocking noises originating around the sunroof for the last month, and I had even been into the dealer the day before to ask them to investigate. Two of their technicians came out for a test drive and agreed that there was a noise emanating from the sunroof area, and consequently the car had been booked in for investigation.

Given the knocking noise, potentially there could have been some element of the sunroof mounting either flexing or moving that could have created excess stress on the glass, resulting in the roof shattering under the loading.

I shall now take the car back down the dealer to await their verdict. To me, it is clear from the previous reports, and my own experience that the roof design and/or material choice is the issue.

I had my rear window on Renault Scenic Grand exploded last night, while I was parked and still in the car. I have even called police, since at first I thought someone has thrown a brick or something like that...

When police arrived we inspected together a damage and realized that window has been blown from inside out. Unbelievable stuff, I thought nobody would believe my story until I googled and found this site.

I can't think of anything more ludicrous than a glass roof on a car.

August 29, 2009

Yesterday morning the sunroof exploded on my brand new Hyundai Elantra Touring (I30 in Europe). I, too, thought someone had dropped a bowling ball on my roof. But, no overpasses in sight. It was a cool morning, raining lightly & I only had one window open about 2 inches. The sound was so loud that I almost lost control of the vehicle. This car only has 200 miles on the odometer & I just picked it up six days ago.

Went immediately to the Hyundai dealer & the service manager tried the "rock hit your roof" line. I told him absolutely NOT. This is a pressure issue & they backed down quickly. I am currently driving a loaner car while they order in my replacement sunroof. However, I am now nervous about driving with a potential disaster just above my head. But my experience with Hyundai is commendable. This is not costing me anything & I don't need to contact my insurance company. And since this happened in the first 200 miles, I have good ammunition & documentation should it occur again.