BOOM! Rear window exploded this morning

I think it's a bad design when you have two hot wires next to each other. Whereas most cars I see have wires on each end. Putting two wires next to each would create too much heat and too fast.
 
I would encourage you guys to report the issue to Toyota, not entirely sure what is causing it. But enough reports will encourage them to look into it.
 
This also worries me. I would be interested in adding a dedicate switch for the heated mirrors. Most of the time when I use the rear defrost it is only because I need to activate the heated mirrors.
 
chompster4runner said:
I think it's a bad design when you have two hot wires next to each other. Whereas most cars I see have wires on each end. Putting two wires next to each would create too much heat and too fast.
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I don't know if it's the wire placement... we'd need to really analyze the design and see more failure pictures to get a better idea I think?

I wonder if someone could start a spreadsheet for the rear glass breakages based on geography, rough temperature outside when failing, ect. like that Headgaske thread I saw a while back. If for nothing else than to satisfy our curiosity (maybe even provide data for members to attach to their reports to Toyota?) I mentioned this to one of the factory guys when I went to our regional center and they haven't really heard anything about the rear glasses blowing out on their end.
 
Toyota glass seems to be crap overall, at least in my experience. I've seen enough reports of this happening on our 4runners to use my rear defrost as infrequently as possible, but I've had a long history of having problems with the garbage glass Toyota seems to be producing. First problem came on my parent's Tundra, the rear view mirror simply fell off, however the epoxy was still in place and it ended up taking a huge gouge out of the glass itself, so after the warranty replaced the windshield with a brand new Toyota piece it got a TINY chip that quickly spider-webbed into another replacement maybe 1 year later. It seems it takes very little to ruin windshields fitted to Toyotas, so I suspect the rear glass is of equally-questionable quality.

So far they are on their 4th or 5th windshield, but the most recent one was aftermarket and has lasted about 7-8 years now. On a side note, my woman's 2002 CLK Mercedes had a HUGE rock simply bounce off it on the freeway with no damage whatsoever (twice when I was driving actually), same goes for my old Mercedes and BMW, but I know something 1/10th that size would have ruined my 4runner's windshield in a second.
 
JEL said:
Toyota glass seems to be crap overall, at least in my experience. I've seen enough reports of this happening on our 4runners to use my rear defrost as infrequently as possible, but I've had a long history of having problems with the garbage glass Toyota seems to be producing. First problem came on my parent's Tundra, the rear view mirror simply fell off, however the epoxy was still in place and it ended up taking a huge gouge out of the glass itself, so after the warranty replaced the windshield with a brand new Toyota piece it got a TINY chip that quickly spider-webbed into another replacement maybe 1 year later. It seems it takes very little to ruin windshields fitted to Toyotas, so I suspect the rear glass is of equally-questionable quality.

So far they are on their 4th or 5th windshield, but the most recent one was aftermarket and has lasted about 7-8 years now. On a side note, my woman's 2002 CLK Mercedes had a HUGE rock simply bounce off it on the freeway with no damage whatsoever (twice when I was driving actually), same goes for my old Mercedes and BMW, but I know something 1/10th that size would have ruined my 4runner's windshield in a second.
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My replacement is aftermarket and so I will not know how the quality is til the next BOOM. Currently, we're not even touching that button. :bash:
 
wow, my rear glass is etched terribly from previous owner. I am not going to use the defroster any more after reading this! My truck is at the body shop right now with a smashed in tailgate. Unfortunately, the body shop plans on putting my old glass into a brand new ordered OEM tailgate. Maybe I should talk to them about putting in new glass after reading this! They did not adjust for that so I would have to pay for it.
 
Hapeacres said:
wow, my rear glass is etched terribly from previous owner. I am not going to use the defroster any more after reading this! My truck is at the body shop right now with a smashed in tailgate. Unfortunately, the body shop plans on putting my old glass into a brand new ordered OEM tailgate. Maybe I should talk to them about putting in new glass after reading this! They did not adjust for that so I would have to pay for it.
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Can you have them snag a picture of the glass out of the vehicle and maybe a close up of the tabs for us to look at? I'd like to see what it looks like out of the vehicle while whole.
 
ben550 said:
How many times have you heard of this? This is the first time I have seen someone saying it happened? It can't be a common occurrence. I've used my defroster for years without it exploding...
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Plenty of times, but it looks like a few others have already shared the countless threads out there documenting this issue. I've had my 4th gen for not even a year and a half, and I remember seeing a thread about this early on and haven't ever used the feature. It really hasn't bugged me.
 
Is it true that if you press the defroster button whilst driving the back window will explode...?


...Yes...



haha
 
just ordered new glass for the back tailgate. 138.00 inc ship on ebay. If anyone wants my old one for free let me know- you just have to pay the shipping. The old one is etched on the outside from previous owner. Probably not worth putting it back in- thats why I am replaceing. There is a vertical wear mark in the same spot almost the entire length like they never had a wiper blade in the arm blade. Why do you want a picture Blackworks? I dont understand what you are trying to look at?
 
ben550 said:
I guess ill just pull the fuse then so I don't accidentally use the defroster... Its never really that bad. And its not hard to do a quick walk around knocking off the snow before driving off.
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FYI, If you pull that fuse the back window won't roll down either I believe
 
mine didnt explode- I just ordered new glass since body shop is installing brand new OEM tailgate (was rear ended) at the cost of 900 bucks and it didnt make sense to me to reinstall the old scratched and etched up back glass. It bothered me already and surely will bother me again even worse! For only 138 bucks shipped- I would rather have my tailgate and glass look like new! Another poster said if the outside is etched, that there is even more of a concern for exploding! I actually talked last night to a professional glass installer who is a friend of mine. He explained that this happens a lot during winter. Basically the heating wires fail due to age/broken and the ohms get really hot on one side and where it fails on the other the glass is cold- Hot and cold do not mix in winter and where the glass is already cold it is even worse and then boom! He said he couldnt do any better than the 138 for the glass and he also services all glasswork at the body shop my 4Runner is at, so he will eventually be installing it in my gate.
 
Hapeacres said:
... Why do you want a picture Blackworks? I dont understand what you are trying to look at?
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Well first off we only have 1 single picture of a failed rear glass plug/heating element pad, which in and of itself does not a pattern form; nor provide a good sample size of data.

Second none of us (including me) have really ever seen what the rear glass looks like outside of the vehicle or how the contacts mount in relation to the glass and it's grid (diagrams in FSMs are nice, but I haven't ever had to pull the rear glass out of a 4th gen yet.) So I want a "Before" picture as a control, and a healthy selection of failures to look through. The idea being the nutty engineer types can analyze the pictures and see if we can find a pattern of failure; worst case we can always package the data for members to send Toyota when they file individual reports, the information would be helpful either way. Much in the way information was consolidated for the cracked dashboards and is currently being done with head gaskets.
 
I took pics of the contacts post-failure that I'll post up. One of the two was pretty blackened but both were pretty crunchy. I was also interested in what the contacts looked like pre-failure but kind of late for that I guess. :bounce:

I'll also take pics of the new glass before I put it in that I'll post up in a how-to when I replace the glass this weekend.

Please stand by...
 
I'll see if I can get a picture of the contacts off the good glass that comes out unless they have thrown it out already, or maybe the new glass that is going in.
 
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