I've experienced spontaneous destruction with a tempered glass shower door, but never seen it in an automotive application. If there was a small rock hit that caused a minuscule chip, its possible that when the car underwent a temperature change, a crack would develop; but the whole window destroyed? I'd guess a stress riser caused by incorrect assembly.

 

This makes a lot of sense to me
Thanks

 

You have a CCTV video showing this happening? Can you upload it? That would be pretty hard for Porsche to refute.

 

Reminds me of a time I heard a lot noise in the garage and couldn't figure out, until the next morning when one of the garage doors wouldn't open, because spring snapped.

This was before the safety cable was in those springs.

 

I have only seen this one time in 30 years of auto ownership.. (assuming no damage before hand). It was an extreme temperature change from hot to cold. I had this happen only once, I was in a 70 degree temp, went to a place that dropped in an unexpected temperature vortex that went down to -19 degree (F) overnight. Got in the car, started it the next morning, and it literally exploded the front windshield. Due to the heater being on (not hot as it was a cold start) but enough that it popped the front windshield when I turned on the car. Made me jump out of my seat.

I have to assume you had some (unknown to you) damage, and with the change it pressure, temp, etc. that cause it to rupture.

I have to say, honestly, if I were porsche - knowing that this is a rare bird of occurrence - I probably would not cover it either. However, your insurance should (depending on where you are).

My only guess is you had a small chip/damage on your rear windscreen, and some temp/humidity situation caused it.

 

Unfortunately, the CCTV shows the front side of the car only. I used it with the dealer that there was no external factor such as chips and/or somebody has broken the glass.

 

This might be right. There is always a probability that I could have (unnoticed chip). But there was no temp/humidity change as the car was parked for several hours when this happened 😔

 

Safelite Repair, Safelite Replace!

 

I've seen it happen on other cars. Parked on a curb, the stresses on the body put pressure on the window frame until the glass broke. A Porsche is probably too rigid for this to happen.

 

Tempered glass can spontaneously explode. I've had it happen in a glass enclosed conference room; no external factor, just *boom*. I'm not surprised to hear it can happen to auto glass as well. There are a number of technical reasons tempered glass might explode, that we have no control over as consumers; stuff during manufacturing process, etc. To us buyers/consumers it's just a spontaneous explosion of the glass.

This should be covered under warranty.

 

this was a real problem for some time with bmw sunroofs. The problem you have is that it looks like there was an impact point on the lower corner which will give them all sorts of excuses to try and get out of covering it.

 

Update:
i have got a reply from Porsche today. They refused to replace the glass under warranty. They claim that they never faced a similar issue and this must have been caused by an external factor. !!

 

It's very disappointing to hear these stories. Is Porsche a premium brand? I'd like to think so but the stories about how they're always trying to find ways to not cover things under warranty is troubling. Check out the thread about windshield gaskets deteriorating. Apparently it's been going on for years and when you bring it to the dealer they'll say you caused it by using some forbidden car shampoo or cleaner.

 

Sorry to hear that, OP.

Semi-off-topic, I've heard in stories dealing with telecoms in America (specifically AT&T) that their "office of the president" is fairly attentive to complaints about poor customer experiences and tend to be able to resolve . I wonder if Porsche has a similar organization that you can escalate a complaint to. I agree that "this must have been caused by an external factor" is bull****. My company just moved us into a brand new office building, and three times now they've had a window randomly shatter, unprompted. I've had shower glass shatter unprompted as well. Yes, something went wrong, but there's no more reason to believe it was an outside force than that your window glass, gasket, housing, or something else about how the car rolled off the assembly line caused this.

 

Kind of surprising from Porsche given the fact that the 3 corners have fractures. I can't imagine what "external factors" caused by the driver could result into something like this. Perhaps someone drove like a daredevil and caused the structure to twist?