Spontaneous window explosion

Que up the "Twilight Zone" music....

 

It's them damn kids with their BB guns I tell ya...

 

Thats one hell of a BB that got our APC and laid it in its side!

Doc.

 

had my side glass crack..been in the car for over 58 years, OEM glass too

bam ... dam..fuckin crack

 

did you check the back seat for cannon balls?

 

Last Summer I was helping a friend move. I was pulling the glass top from a large patio table out of the bed of his pickup and it exploded. It cut my hand and shot pieces of glass up my arm and in my face (thank God I reacted instantly and didnt get any in my eyes). There was glass everywhere, it went over the top of the truck and into the street (the truck was backed into the driveway) and all the way to the back wall of the garage. It took about thirty minutes to sweep it all up and it was still making a bunch of noise in the trash can two hours later.

 

Years ago I was picking up a '65 GTO back glass and it blew up in my hands just like you Muttley. Fortunately, unlike you, I just got a nick on one of my knuckles. But it did scare the shit out of me.

 

Yep,..welcome to the club !

4TTRUK

 

My Dad's brand new 74 Plymouth Satellite had the back window blow out when he backed it out of the garage on a really cold morning.

One time I had a glass of Jim Beam and Coke break in my hand when I picked it up off the bar.

Glass can do funny things.

 

Yeah especially when you've been drinkin'!

 

I had a glass do that once, but I wasn't picking it up...............I swear I don't know how it got all over the side of that guys head officer!

Doc.

 

Crazy.. My OT DD's windshield cracked last year because I left the windows all up. Ever since then, if it feels warm, I just leave the windows cracked open a little.. Never heard of glass spontaneously exploding like that however.

 

Yup. 1985. Standing in my buddy's garage and the rear window in his 1974 Buick Century just imploded into tiny pieces a minute after we got out. No door slammed, no one near the car. Made the oddest sound and was just obliterated.

 

.....".Covered me in ghetto diamonds, and made the instructor freak out..." (Post # 18)

Never heard that term for broken glass !!
I must have lead a sheltered life

 

Ghetto diamonds is my new favorite saying!

 

Breaking glass always freaks me out. You might want to think about getting the windows tinted with a clear tint so if it ever happens again it'll at least hold the shattered glass together instead of going all over the inside of the vehicle and possibly on someone

 

Happened to me years ago on a cold 15* day on the rear windshield on a '63 Plymouth Valiant. Went to scrape the ice off the glass and noticed it had self-destructed overnight. Happens in the cold or the heat.

 

When glass is tempered the surface is harden and the glass particles are capsulated in side. Glass does expand and contract with weather changes any small scratch weakens the hardened surface and the heat expansion will cause it to explode...end of class....

 

Wow, can you imagine the windshield blowing up in your face while driving down the road???.
That's a scarey thought there..

 

I was about 15, I heard one go in a neighbor's black Olds 88. It was sweltering hot and she had all the windows up. Lesson learned that I do today with black cars, on a hot day, crack the windows a little.

Bob

 

Same with my parent's 70 LTD when I was a kid. Mom was taking me to school, we hoped in and the back window exploded.

 

Cocky, and almost correct. However, weather conditions do not have a dramatic enough temperature swing to affect tempered glass. Especially non-tinted clear glass in the typical automotive sizes. Obviously, chipped glass weakens tempered glass by making the hardened surface of the piece thinner and more likely to release the energy of the encapsulated unstable material. Spontaneous combustion is more often a result of nickel sulfide inclusions that are not exiled during the float process. Nickel sulfide inclusions continue to expand within fully tempered glass after the tempering process. This eventually penetrates the hardened shell of the substrate at it's thinnest most vulnerable point. Nickel sulfide inclusions are more common in glass that is floated in unregulated countries like Taiwan and China but not entirely eliminated in the best of conditions. There's more to this but I'm tired of writing.

 

Don't get scared, windshields are typically laminated annealed glass that will crack and not separate rather than combust.

 

In about 1958 my friend Tim and I were walking by his dads '51 Ford in the driveway when the back glass exploded,,scared the crap out of us and his dad was sitting on the front porch sweating like a pig and started yelling at us about throwing rocks.

We told him we were innocent but he wasn't buying it,He told Tim to get in the house and told me he was calling my dad and for me to go home.

All this took place during a unusually hot summer and the following Sunday at Church the exploding window was brought up with all the men standing around in the parking lot,,2 others had windows shatter during the week,,,and Tim and I were nowhere near these cars.

We both received a apology and Dean treated us to a movie and took us to the new place in town for a burger,,,McDonalds. HRP

 

At one time England and/or some European countries(don't remember specifically) either allowed or required tempered glass windshields. Not sure if that's still the case.

Tempered glass is harder to break than the "regular" glass used in laminated "safety glass" windshields. But when it does break there's nothing left to help stop a rock/hunk of scrap metal/bowling ball as there is with safety glass.

 

Had a 64 vw karmen Guia that had the pass door window blow out on me- sitting in the driveway- was a warm day but not hot and the car was yellow. Jim

 

In 2000, the wife's brand new Corvette blew the driver window out while parked in a secure lot. We thought it was vandalized but the security camera didn't reveal any foul play.

It was a hot day and the windows were up. Never heard of that happening but it sounds like it's not uncommon.

 

I've seen it many times. We get temperature extremes from -40 to 100 over the course of the life of a car and I suspect it has something to do with it. The rear glass is the most common and it seems to be in the center of the glass.

We also have exploding roads on high heat days. No explosives involved. I've seen a couple hundred pound chunk of concrete pop almost ten feet in the air. Just lucky it happened in front of me in the other lane.

 

The worst thing about this incident is that you have to find the original Curved glass to replace it!

 

I'm just gonna chop the car now and not get a new glass..