8th Generation Honda Civic Forum banner

SHATTERED back window due to defroster

35K views 41 replies 36 participants last post by  kaandemir_ 
#1 ·
As far as safety concerns and customer service goes, as a civic Si owner I am very unhappy, about a week ago I was driving down a road in my small hometown, It was a little cold out but nowhere near freezing. I decided to turn on my rear window defroster so that my view would be clear to see other vehicles in my surrounding area when I heard a loud POP in the rear of my vehicle. As you can imagine I was a bit shaken up only to find out that the heating element from my window defroster had caused my back window to shatter completely. So I made the issue known to Honda locally and even took the time to pose it as a safety issue to corporate at American Honda and I was rudely shrugged aside by a representative by the name of Keisha and was given no help what so ever. In fact I was told to get my insurance company involved for Hondas own manufacture defect. On top of all of this matter I realized that there were plenty of other newer model Civics in my area that are used as family cars. By the grace of god I didn't have any infants in my back seat, and for that matter I would have loved to have heard Honda's resolution to something of that nature.
 
#2 ·
the rear defrost is timed to allow proper cooling in between, even if it is a manufacturere defect goodluck proving it because hundreds of thousands of these cars have been running since 2006 with out this problem.

water may have dropped onto your rear window while driving and cracked it.
 
#10 ·
Tempered glass can be very touchy, yet an amazing feat. Over the years I have heard of this type glass breaking by closing the opposite side car door, and also sunroofs shattering, but at the same time there is a 2.5' x 6' glass in the front door at work that took a blow from a chunk of concrete and only has a scar from it.

The burnt area does sound strange though do you have documentation you could present to Honda ?? Once out of the 3/36 it is hard to get Honda to budge.
 
#12 ·
yea that sounds kinda iffy unless u changed the rear window before as it happened to me in my fathers infiniti qx56 i put on the front defroster and the windshield popped (aftermarket windshied) and i had a crack on the bottom but as far as shatter that sounds unusual
 
#16 ·
My mom had left her Defroster on before when it was in the spring, worst thing that happened was the glass looked a little funny.

Now did your glass shatter into millions of pieces or is it intact but shattered.

If its shattered to a million pieces I'd say foul play maybe. If it remained whole then there might be fault in the electrical system. But even then do the defrosters even get that hot? Ive put hot pots onto some tempered glass with no problem in the past.
 
#21 · (Edited)
Hey I was looking for this thread a while ago. Same thinig happened with my car, pissed the *** out of me too :deadhorse:

http://www.8thcivic.com/forums/bc-yukon-nwt/237142-rear-windshield-exploded.html

Honda rep said the same thing to me, but I raised hell and dropped it off at their dealership the next day.. they fixed some other window defect I had under warranty but did nothing about the windshield and said they couldn't because they would have to order in and a bunch of other excuses(?).. ended up taking it to a local shop and got it fixed , still dealing with the insurance claim and stuff . Sigh
 
#24 ·
Same thing happened to me with my 7th gen a few years back, the glass looked exactly like Lyfe's. It was the summer time, the car was parked and not even turned on. No foriegn objects found in the car, just a bunch of shattered glass. I took some pics with my old phone but they are long gone, should have kept them. I was pissed!!!
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top