Unexplained rear windshield stress crack...*

Parked my car in the driveway in a nice neighborhood on dead end street (not too much traffic) Friday n Saturday of last week. Sunday morning went to church at 11:30 and was about to take the LS 460 but there's a car parked behind so took GF's car instead. Prior to leaving I inspected the car to see how it looks. I've always have a habit to checking out my car n admiring it's beauty

Anyway, came back in 1.5hrs to find the rear windshield completely cracked all over and no evidences of foul play.

Reported to Lexus next day and dealer, Lexus customer relations declined my appeal for warranty of defective glass.

Anyone ever heard of Lexus rear windshield being defective?

 

Thats not a stress crack. Thats busted. I would assume that some kids may have hit the car with a basketball or something. There is no way thats from a defect

 

Yeah, that is definitely busted. I don't know if a basketball can spider a glass like that, but that is not a "stress crack." I was gonna ask if there was a golf course anywhere near? When I lived in Tucson, I lived on the back side of a small golf course, and the folks behind me always had golf ***** around their yard.

 

The glass spidered like that because its laminated glass and that will only happen to that extent if it was hit......and hit hard. Regardless of what hit the glass, something did. I would see if you had a kids playing near your place. They are probably home right now freaking out. lol

 

Stress crack is a line or two. That is baseball stress releaving crack LOL... May be GF is giving you a hint for taking her car LOL..

 

BUSTED!!! hahaha jk this really sucks dude!!! And you wouldn't of gotten away with it if it wasn't for those meddling kids

 

I don't think anything hit it bc there's not too many kids around. Like I've stated it was fine at 11am and 1.5hrs later it's all cracked.
I'm assuming it was the heat that cause it. My car is black on black and the inside heat could have been too great which caused it to pop. I did leave the car sitting there for 3 straight days.

 

stress / heat crack cannot be like that. if that's the case, then one crack will be more than enough to release all the stress already. it's hard to imagine any stress crack that can create something you showed

 

not a chance.

 

is there a clear point of impact on the glass in which the cracks spread from?

When I was younger I had a truck and was standing next to it in a parking lot when all of a sudden I heard some weird crumbling noise. It wasn't a shatter or bang, just the sound of crumbling(I don't know how else to explain it.) Anyway, turns out that my driver side window had completely shattered with no impact to it. It was so random. The tint held everything together but to this day, I could never figure out why it happened.

 

There is no magic behind it. Something hit the glass. You just didnt see it

 

if i were to guess i would say its not from an impact bc there are other cars around it. If it was vandalize the other cars would have been hit too. Plus, i cant think of anyone that would hit the car. The LS is parked in front of all the cars in the driveway. Nothing happened to anyone of them and there was no one around. No falling rocks or trees. "Laid_Out" may be right.... unexplained forces...

 

There wasn't a noticeable impact on the windshield where you can say something hit it. There was a small, i mean pin-size, crack where u can say it might be from there but it was so evenly cracked that its hard to pin point the cause of it.

 

I disagree with the majority of posters on this thread. This is laminated glass and is designed to shatter into a thousand small pieces under severe stress so that there are no large shards. I see no point of impact where the glass could have been hit by anything significant and I think it absolutely could have shattered from heat.

I live in Austin, TX. We have an ultra luxury hotel and condo tower here operated by the W. If you google "Austin W glass" you will find that it has been in the news over the last four weeks because the laminated glass from the balcony has been spontaneously shattering into a thousand pieces and dropping out of the sky onto people. They don't know the official cause, but they suspect the severe heat we've been experiencing is causing expansion in the joints where the glass is mounted and causing it to break (this has been occurring in the afternoon at the hottest part of the day). Luckily, it is laminated so that huge shards of glass do not fall on people (there is video of this happening so it is not any sort of foul play such as a BB gun, just extreme heat).

So I think it is absolutely reasonable to think something similar happened to your window, as the glass looks the same after shattering. I'm not an engineer, but if someone hit it, there should be at least a small divot at the impact point, right?

How can they argue it is not defective glass? Where is the impact that caused this!?

 

I had a friend years ago say that the porcelain in spark plugs can shatter a window like that but never tried it. I just did a search and there are some videos on youtube that show that it does appear to work. Maybe some kids tried it on your back window. Check to see if there are any small pieces of porcelain around your car from a spark plug.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaYeH...eature=related