Well my rear hatch window shattered from the defroster

T

Topher88

New member
Today on my way to work it was about 58° out and I decided to turn on my defrosters and about 10 minutes into my drive on the freeway my window randomly shattered. Before this icemelt some sort of burning plastic but thought it was coming from outside but the smell kept getting stronger and then all of a sudden my rear window shattered. No fun at all!



 
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I think about this every time I hit that button... I mean, I want a clear rear window to see through but damn, not that clear... sorry to hear that
 
Tx9812valve said:
I think about this every time I hit that button... I mean, I want a clear rear window to see through but damn, not that clear... sorry to hear that
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as do I.

I don't like that the mirrors are tied into the rear window defroster. sometimes the mirrors are frosted up, but the rear window isn't, or vice versa. id like to be able to control them independently, to hopefully avoid things like this...
 
Lol, 58 degrees and we are about to turn the a/c on. I never thought of using the rear defroster for fog as I thought it was for snow and ice. Then again, never had an issue with fog on the intetior rear hatch window.
 
first off sucks to the OP.

and I'm not sure if anyone has figured out why the rear windows are shattering with the defroster on but it sounds like an electrical short of some king as everyone I remember reading has reported melting plastic before it shattered.

Anyone have an educated guesses on why this is happening to 4th gens?
 
NuclearN8 said:
first off sucks to the OP.

and I'm not sure if anyone has figured out why the rear windows are shattering with the defroster on but it sounds like an electrical short of some king as everyone I remember reading has reported melting plastic before it shattered.

Anyone have an educated guesses on why this is happening to 4th gens?
Click to expand...

  • Defect in glass
  • Defect in solder
  • Excessive corrosion at solder
  • Something else?
 
Happened last week to the guy that owns the tire shop down the road in his 04 SR5. I told him that I have read of this happening to a few other people and he went off the reservation. Pretty sure he is still on the phone with Toyota.

OP. According to the glass guy, the defrosters just heat up too fast and the glass tries to expand where it is warm.

I would think there is no fix for it, as a matter of fear, I never used the rear defrosters in either of my 4th gens.
 
As an insurance underwriter for a property and casualty insurance company that writes a lot of auto insurance I can safely say that no, comprehensive coverage most likely won't apply to this. Occasionally an insurance company will pay when they don't have to for some reason but I wouldn't count on it.

They pay for chips and cracks to the front windshield because that damage is evidence of a covered event (impact of some sort). Damage to the vehicle from material defect isn't a peril normally covered by an insurance policy.
 
TOY2G said:
I would think there is no fix for it, as a matter of fear, I never used the rear defrosters in either of my 4th gens.
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One fix for it is to install a resistor in the circuit. Downside is this will also slow defrosting time. Take a look at how many watts the heater is sucking up and calculate the ohms required to knock it back maybe 10% using something like Ohm's Law / Watt's Law Calculator

Edit: see post/scematics below - parallel circuit, not series. Resistor wouldn't solve issue which is uneven heating, not too much heat too quickly.
 
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Looking over the service manual I've decided to pull my rear window defogger fuse.
The system seems to be wired in a parallel circuit instead of a series circuit. This will lead to the rear window heating unevenly (if there is a broken wire), which will cause SNAP!...

IF you look over the schematics and troubleshooting guide attached you will likely come to the same conclusion...

So unless you know for a fact all of your rear window defogger lines are intact, I wouldn't use it.

Also I saw there is a 15 minute timeout feature on the defogger if you're brave enough to test that.
It also appears the rear window defogger has a seperate fuse than the mirror defoggers, for those models so equipped.
 

Attachments

jbtvt said:
One fix for it is to install a resistor in the circuit. Downside is this will also slow defrosting time. Take a look at how many watts the heater is sucking up and calculate the ohms required to knock it back maybe 10% using something like Ohm's Law / Watt's Law Calculator
Click to expand...

Well yea....... I guess you could do that....... But will it give you better MPG???

Didn't think so!

:naughty:
 
Add my 2006 truck to this list. Happened this morning. Rained last night, so the truck was covered in water and dew. We live in north Florida, outside temp was probably 75 and very humid. Taking our son to camp, I turned on the rear defroster to dry the rear window. Dropped him off, heading home then BOOM! Probably ~15 minutes from start to it shattering. I guess I'm going to call Safelite now. :(
 
add my 2006 to the list as well. I smelled the short and then it sounded like 25lbs of snow fell on my roof. Nope, rear glass shattered. Does anyone know for sure why this is happening? The idea that they are wired in parallel sounds like the most plausible cause.

Called insurance, told them I don't know what happened. Sounds like they are going to cover it with $0 deductible. So at least there's that. Still frustrating as all heck.

:rain:
 
damnthemansam said:
add my 2006 to the list as well. I smelled the short and then it sounded like 25lbs of snow fell on my roof. Nope, rear glass shattered. Does anyone know for sure why this is happening? The idea that they are wired in parallel sounds like the most plausible cause.

Called insurance, told them I don't know what happened. Sounds like they are going to cover it with $0 deductible. So at least there's that. Still frustrating as all heck.

:rain:
Click to expand...

Look at the FSM pages posted already. It happens because you have a break on a wire which then doesn't get hot, but the other wires still get hot which leads to uneven heating and expansion, which causes the tempered glass to shatter. Like the manual says, this can be prevented by taking care of the wires, avoiding abrasive cleaners, wiping or scraping a dirty window, and probably automatic car washes.

This also means that installing a resistor as I wrote before likely wouldn't save the windshield (I was working on the assumption of a series circuit and the wires simply getting too hot too quickly when I wrote that, as I didn't have the FSM in front of me).
 
Topher88 said:
Today on my way to work it was about 58° out and I decided to turn on my defrosters and about 10 minutes into my drive on the freeway my window randomly shattered. Before this icemelt some sort of burning plastic but thought it was coming from outside but the smell kept getting stronger and then all of a sudden my rear window shattered. No fun at all!







Click to expand...



Not related AT ALL. But I want that bumper!![emoji7][emoji7]


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