[track_warrior]

So i bought my f31 328d yesterday and today while driving along on the highway my passenger side window suddenly explodes! Thankfully my wife stayed home, she was about to come with me in the morning. Im at the side of the road right now waiting for bmw assist to pickup the car and there is glass everywhere, hopefully you can see the pics since im on my phone. Nothing hit the window from what i can tell, it looks like it just randomly exploded. What could have caused this?

Update:
I sent the car back to BMW of San Antonio that was around 45 mins away and rented a beetle since im leaving Sunday anyways i can drop her off at the airport and it will be cheaper than a taxi. BMW of San Antonio inspected the damage and can't determine what caused it, they will be repairing it under warranty. They said its the first time they see something like that but can't find any evidence of a projectile hitting the window. They said they might inspect the frame to make sure its aligned and there is no added pressure on the window.

[jeff080]

Pics aren't working, but damn, glad you are ok!

[stormlv]

I would think that you were unlucky enough to get a stone thrown in your side window, by a passing car.

Happened to me a while back and managed to chip it a bit...

BTW photos are not showing

[Caught Looking]

Here are his pics:

[chiefneil]

Auto glass is tempered for safety. Tempered glass is designed to shatter into a thousand tiny pieces, rather than break into a few large chunks. That is, you can't break a little piece off a tempered glass window - breaking off the tiniest piece causes the entire thing to shatter into a million fragments.

Tempered glass can sometimes shatter from invisible stresses like thermal expansion or deflection, where non-tempered glass won't. So it's possible a tiny pebble hit your window and shattered it, or you hit a small bump and the already stressed glass decided that was enough to shatter. I believe there's also just a certain small (rare) failure rate inherent to tempering that causes it to shatter for no particular reason.

TLDR: sorry that sucks, but it happens. Get it replaced and you'll be good to go. See a good detailer to get all the million glass fragments vacuumed up.

[omaralt]

Why are you waiting on BMW assist? Just drive to the dealer

[kyoko]

sucks... Happened to me once, a long long time ago. I was pulling into a street and suddenly the rear window shattered. After looking at the glass and debris in the car, we saw a bb and concluded that we were shot by some kid's bb gun...

[justinnum1]

how far is the dealer and is it drivable?

[floydarogers]

There were several posts about this happening to E9x sunroofs; you're the first F3x with a window, congratulations.

Sucks.

[Steve33]

Sounds silly, but is there any damage to the mirror housing on the part closest to the window? It almost looks like there was an impact of something right there in front of the window (look at the way the glass has a semi-circular pattern right there)

[track_warrior]

Sorry for my late reply guys its been crazy. I did not want to keep driving since i was close to San Marcos since i was going shopping at the outlets and they were only 4 exits ahead. I sent the car back to BMW of San Antonio that was around 45 mins away and rented a beetle since im leaving tomorrow anyways i can drop her off at the airport and it will be cheaper than a taxi. BMW of San Antonio inspected the damage and can't determine what caused it, they will be repairing it under warranty. They said its the first time they see something like that but can't find any evidence of a projectile hitting the window. They said they might inspect the frame to make sure its aligned and there is no added pressure on the window.

[Philipangoo]

That is nuts.

[DC X3M40i]

That is insane. Happened to a friend of mine years ago but it was in a scion.
Glad you were not injured

[chiefneil]

Happened to a co-worker of mine about 12 years ago. We were going to lunch in her brand new E-class. We had just pulled out of the parking garage at the office, sitting at the stop sign to pull into traffic when the front passenger window just shattered.

[track_warrior]

Thanks for worrying guys, thankfully i had my sunglasses on and it kept the small glass particles out of my eyes. It could have been worse if i would have gotten a small piece of glass in my eye doing 75mph. Or even worse if my wife was sitting in the passenger seat.

Im curious as to what caused it but we may never know.

[omaralt]

I'm really surprised that they're covering it under warranty. Really nice of them

[tturedraider]

Originally Posted by chiefneil

Auto glass is tempered for safety. Tempered glass is designed to shatter into a thousand tiny pieces, rather than break into a few large chunks. That is, you can't break a little piece off a tempered glass window - breaking off the tiniest piece causes the entire thing to shatter into a million fragments.

Tempered glass can sometimes shatter from invisible stresses like thermal expansion or deflection, where non-tempered glass won't. So it's possible a tiny pebble hit your window and shattered it, or you hit a small bump and the already stressed glass decided that was enough to shatter. I believe there's also just a certain small (rare) failure rate inherent to tempering that causes it to shatter for no particular reason.

TLDR: sorry that sucks, but it happens. Get it replaced and you'll be good to go. See a good detailer to get all the million glass fragments vacuumed up.

this. Almost certainly a manufacturing defect. Glad no one got hurt and that it's getting fixed.

[Feanor]

I had something similar happen to my 3 day old Z4 in 2006. Was driving along the motorway, stone hit the side window. Was fine until I got to my destination and locked the car, at which point the window exploded. Made a right mess - the door needed respraying and the leather seats needed repairing!

Very glad it didn't happen at 75mph