2016 Pilot - Exploding rear window

cwmyers

Has any other Honda owner had any of their windows explode for no apparent reason? The tailgate window on my eight day old, 2016 Honda Pilot forcefully exploded as I exited my garage and began driving up my driveway. There was no one around the vehicle. My husband was behind the house in the back yard and heard the loud explosion. Glass shards were ejected 15 feet from the car. The force broke the rear wiper blade and bent the wiper arm downward. The dealership maintains we pressed the blade into the glass and the window shattered. Or I closed the garage door on the car or a tree branch fell on the window. THE WINDOW SIMPLY EXPLODED. I see this has happened on other brands of cars. It would help to know if other Honda owners have experienced this problem.

4hawkeyes

My guess is the rear glass was already probably already cracked and a air pressure difference occurred while you were exiting the garage causing the window to "explode". I have a 2008 Pilot that had a similar problem but I'm pretty sure it was self-induced. I had to dispose of an old refrigerator that had given up the ghost and I loaded it into the back of my Pilot but couldn't get it in far enough to completely close the tailgate. I had to drive a few miles with the tailgate door slightly ajar. I think the vibration of the tailgate door bouncing against the refrigerator probably introduced a crack in my rear window. The next day I opened a rear side door and loaded a couple of things into the back seat. When I closed the rear side door the tailgate window "exploded". Most likely due to the internal increase in air pressure due to closing the door and thus blowing out the already cracked tailgate window. You probably need to ask yourself if you had anything loaded in the back of your vehicle that could have bumped up against the tailgate window and caused an initial crack. My guess is your tailgate window was already cracked and some internal air pressure change caused it to "explode" when you exited the garage. I used Safelite Autoglass for the repair and it came out great.

abe1968

The tailgate window of my 2016 Pilot just shattered a couple of days ago while sitting in my garage. Nothing hit it, so this appears to be a defect. Of course Honda won't recognize it as such. Luckily my insurance will cover it, but I intend to pursue Honda for the deductible at least. They need to step up. This is not the first time Honda has had this issue with their vehicles.

Mr_Shiftright

Sometimes this just happens to tempered glass. It could be due to thermal stress, ( glass is a poor conductor of heat) to defects in the glass from time of manufacture (impurities), or yes, even from improper installation in the frame.

Unless some massive number of Pilot windshields start exploding all over America, you're going to have a hard time proving it to be Honda's fault. This is why this type of unfortunate incident is usually handled by insurance.

But by all means, report it to NHTSA and hold onto any receipt for out-of-pocket expenses you might have incurreed. You never know what decisions might be made in the future.

(see link below)

FILE A COMPLAINT WITH NHTSA

vanzanvang86

Just bought a 2017 Honda CRV EX-L this March. Drove fine for 3 months & 3k miles. Last Wednesday the rear tailgate windshield exploded. The car was stationary at my work place. It was a hot 92 degree day in Stockton, CA. A coworker drove by and heard a loud pop from my car and she notice my damaged window and cane to notify me asap. The glass clearly exploded because all indications of the bulging of glass has puffed outward from my car. There's a huge 1 foot wide hole in the center left, it looks like when a chick is hatching from its egg. There's only 2 chunks of glass broken from the hole, one into car, the other rested outside the hole on the wiper. If anything hits it, the glass would of shattered in the center & the glass would shows white big stress-marks expanding from the hole. Yet none. My whole window shattered starting from both ends of the rear windshield, disconnecting the whole glass from the car. I work as a QA team member & we supply parts for Honda. I measure many of the parts we supplied. So I'm not stupid to mention to Honda my glass exploded. I did my research & came across many of these problems, even some were reported here in this forum. I took great pic & videos of the incident & showed both my dealership & Honda Corporate & expressed greatly that this is a Safety concern. Perhaps a bad defect like a bad defrosting unit where it fails to shut off after engine shuts off or basically defect within the glass during manufacturing process with Nickel Sulfide in glass. Honda does not cover glass under their warranties so as soon as I mention broken glass, they divert around my questions or gives other possible causes. I'm a QA member who makes & measure parts for them I'm not that dumb. Yet Honda will not investigate this when it clearly concern custoner's safety, mine to be exact. Now I have to spent $500 to fix it & I felt Honda could of look into this, physically. There clearly is a defected factor somewhere. 

Claires

Van, save the receipts from that repair just in case, and be sure to file a report with the NHTSA - click the link in Mr Shiftright's post above.

vanzanvang86 said:

Just bought a 2017 Honda CRV EX-L this March. Drove fine for 3 months & 3k miles. Last Wednesday the rear tailgate windshield exploded. The car was stationary at my work place. It was a hot 92 degree day in Stockton, CA. A coworker drove by and heard a loud pop from my car and she notice my damaged window and cane to notify me asap. The glass clearly exploded because all indications of the bulging of glass has puffed outward from my car. There's a huge 1 foot wide hole in the center left, it looks like when a chick is hatching from its egg. There's only 2 chunks of glass broken from the hole, one into car, the other rested outside the hole on the wiper. If anything hits it, the glass would of shattered in the center & the glass would shows white big stress-marks expanding from the hole. Yet none. My whole window shattered starting from both ends of the rear windshield, disconnecting the whole glass from the car. I work as a QA team member & we supply parts for Honda. I measure many of the parts we supplied. So I'm not stupid to mention to Honda my glass exploded. I did my research & came across many of these problems, even some were reported here in this forum. I took great pic & videos of the incident & showed both my dealership & Honda Corporate & expressed greatly that this is a Safety concern. Perhaps a bad defect like a bad defrosting unit where it fails to shut off after engine shuts off or basically defect within the glass during manufacturing process with Nickel Sulfide in glass. Honda does not cover glass under their warranties so as soon as I mention broken glass, they divert around my questions or gives other possible causes. I'm a QA member who makes & measure parts for them I'm not that dumb. Yet Honda will not investigate this when it clearly concern custoner's safety, mine to be exact. Now I have to spent $500 to fix it & I felt Honda could of look into this, physically. There clearly is a defected factor somewhere. 

punacar

I have a 2017 CRV that is 4 weeks old and a 1000 miles on it. While sitting in the carport the rear window exploded. It looked identical to the pictures posted by Van. I am pretty confident that we did not have any cracks or dings from flying rocks or pebbles. I complained to our local dealer (Big Island Honda) and they are agreeing to replace it. Pretty sure this is just dealer good will towards a new customer and not a warranty item covered by Honda.
However, given the other Honda CRV owners who have had similar problems, I would suspect that this is (or should be) a Honda warranty item. Honda are you listening?

farrahmo

I have a 2017 CRV Touring that I bought in May and this morning I was going to take the kids to their doctor appointment 40 minutes away and I noticed this at the last minute. We live in North Eastern British Columbia, Canada, however it’s been mild weather wise these past few months. At first I thought it was an act of vandalism, but there was no sign of a brick or rock being thrown at the rear tailgate glass. As you can see from the photos, there was some stress on the glass that caused it to bow out and smash. My father in law was there and he’s been in the car industry for 30 years and says it’s obviously a defect in the glass. I got it towed to the dealership and they said they are most likely not going to cover it under warranty. Thinking of contacting Honda Canada to see if they can do something about replacing it for free or at least pay the deductible. I’m just thankful it didn’t happen on our way to the clinic. It’s a piss off how a glass can break so easy without any direct pressure. This defect is a safety hazard and it’s ludicrous that Honda would not recognize this as a problem and fix it.

mespilot

cwmyers said:

Has any other Honda owner had any of their windows explode for no apparent reason? The tailgate window on my eight day old, 2016 Honda Pilot forcefully exploded as I exited my garage and began driving up my driveway. There was no one around the vehicle. My husband was behind the house in the back yard and heard the loud explosion. Glass shards were ejected 15 feet from the car. The force broke the rear wiper blade and bent the wiper arm downward. The dealership maintains we pressed the blade into the glass and the window shattered. Or I closed the garage door on the car or a tree branch fell on the window. THE WINDOW SIMPLY EXPLODED. I see this has happened on other brands of cars. It would help to know if other Honda owners have experienced this problem.

This happened to my 2016 honda pilot 2 days ago. The rear window exploded and I was in the car, I got out to see if anything hit the window and nothing. I was having a difficult time trying to understand and explain this, until I saw this post. This is a family car and they need to addrss it, I will call the dealer and report this.
 

PF_Flyer

I would think it most likely to be stress being put on the glass by the tailgate frame. I had a vehicle that went through 3 windshields in about 4 months. They weren't exploding, but they were just mysteriously cracking, almost in half. On the 4th installation, they figured out that the window frame HAD to be slightly distorted even though it looked fine and seemed to be true when measured. So they ground one edge of the new glass before they installed it so the fit wasn't so snug. That windshield lasted for the rest of the 185,000 miles I owned the vehicle. So I'm thinking this almost HAS to be an issue with the tolerances between the rear window and the opening in the tailgate that's stressing the glass.

sulmc2009

This just happened to my two month old pilot. I was in the store and came out to find my tailgate window shattered and it looks like the pictures above. I called the police because I thought someone had tried to break in but the officers confirmed that it was broken from the inside out. After searching online I found that a lot of Honda owners had this issue. I took the car to the dealer and after 2 hours they denied my claim. I then called Honda of America and they opened a case in order to investigate. It is now day two and the dealer called to tell me that the case is still open but I have to return to rental or pay almost $80 a day for it, This is ridiculous. Now I reached out to Honda of America again to see what they plan to do and I am currently waiting on a response. This is the second Honda I own and had loved them until this point. I hope they make this right and fix the defect.

amiel2018

I would like to share as well my horrible experience glass shattered for “NO APPARENT REASON” on my Honda Pilot EXL 2014.  It happened yesterday and was thinking I’d hit something behind while I was backing up slowly. I checked behind to see if I hit the garage cabinet.  Clearly, there’s no marks on it.  I just heard a loud bang all of a sudden.  The neighbors thought it was a gunshot.  Came to the back of the car and just saw the glass shattered into little tiny pieces and left a dent on the rear wiper mount and one right next to it and it did chip the paint (see pictures)  Despite of it, I’m blessed my kid and family were not there the time the incident happened. It could be worst. 

With all these horrible experience that happened to us, Honda should be held liable.  It looks like insurance is the only best bet to resolve the incident based on your guy’s input as of yet.   Thought I was the only one experienced it until I did my research and came accross on this forum.

I would like to thank you for your inputs.  

Mr_Shiftright

Yes, this can be a very startling experience! The glass is tempered, however, so unless something actually would strike you in the eye, there's not much chance of being injured if you're in the car when it happens and it's standing still. If you're moving (this happened to me but not on a Pilot), you just need to stay calm, pull over and get out and shake yourself clean. It's a huge mess if it "implodes" rather than "explodes". I used heavy gloves, eye protection and safety glasses and worked it clean with a shop vac.

These incidents are mostly caused by impurities in the glass, triggered by temperature changes or jarring. It's very unpredictable and can happen to any car, any time.

berri

Honda seems to have had a string of quality issues recently. Did they hire former Detroit purchasing people or what?

amiel2018

https://www.google.com/amp/abc13.com/amp/automotive/driver-says-her-f-150-window-spontaneously-shattered/2768932/


It looks like it Mr_Shiftright based on the video link above.  She’s a Ford F-150 owner on this case.

I would agree with berri about poor quality control.  Both of my cars are Honda.  Not to mention, civic ‘09 of mine, has a chaulking paint issue.  Oh well...  



 

haleycc

PLEASE make sure you call Honda customer support! I experienced this this past Friday. We were sitting at home... my car was in the car port. My husband noticed my rear window had been busted out. I thought a rock had been slung through it or it had been hit with a baseball bat.. there was nothing anywhere around. And there was NO WAY someone came into our driveway and did it. Our neighbors were outside when it happened. It literally just busted. As others have stated, the glass was bowed outward. I called Honda this morning to report it. She apologized (yep, that’s it.) she told me that if more people reported it, they might recall it. I have had my 2018 CRV for LESS THAN 2 MONTHS. It had no cracks or dings prior to this. I also have a one month old baby who is normally in this crv with me!! So I am very thankful we weren’t in the car when it happened. Report it to Honda so hopefully they can fix this issue!!!!

haleycc

longhaul

2016 Pilot. My husband was driving at 65 mph and the moon roof shattered from the center. Just thankful this was during Covid lockdown so that the traffic was very lite and he was able to pull off road quickly. There were no overpasses or trucks with debris or extreme weather temperature; just shattered. Very thankful he was not hurt. Given that the moon roofs and rear windshield are made of the same tempered glass, this spontaneous shattering from the center of multiple vehicles indicates issues with the glass, not isolated incidents. We have reported to both Honda USA and NHTSA