What is a 'sun roof'?

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Burning Petard
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What is a 'sun roof'?

Post by Burning Petard »

The current Consumer Report has a big article on sun roofs exploding. Suddenly there is a loud noise and lots of nugget fragments of tempered glass rain down on the car occupants. Article describes how the expanse of glass in the roofs of cars has become much larger and there is little public information about the engineering requirements for this structure. The glass is usually tempered, rarely laminated like a windshield to keep the pieces together if it fails. Cause of the breakage is not clear, and cost of replacement is usually not part of the car warranty.

Huh? Yes I know I have not examined closely new cars for more than a decade. Last I knew, a 'sun roof' was a panel in the top of the car that OPENED! It let fresh air in. I was a great way to get hot air out of a car that had been sitting in the hot sun.

The roof panel of the car I thought was a very stressed portion of chassis deign; an important part of over-all stiffness of the entire car body. Steel (or aluminum) can take flex without failure much better than glass. And when did 'sun roofs' stop opening?

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MajGenl.Meade
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Re: What is a 'sun roof'?

Post by MajGenl.Meade »

My Nissan Maxima sun roof was glass. It opened - either sliding all the way backward or tilting at the back. Because it could be opened does not mean it always was open. It was often closed on hot days when (a) no one was in the vehicle and (b) when the aircon was on.

Go with a moon roof for safety. They only break at night and there are fewer people driving then. :?
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Joe Guy
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Re: What is a 'sun roof'?

Post by Joe Guy »

My 2009 RAV4 sunroof has a shade that I can manually slide to let light in and then a button that makes the window slide open. Most sunroofs are probably similar to that nowadays.
MajGenl.Meade wrote:Go with a moon roof for safety. They only break at night and there are fewer people driving then. :?
Good point. maybe I'll have mine converted from sun roof to moon roof. I wonder how much that costs...

Jarlaxle
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Re: What is a 'sun roof'?

Post by Jarlaxle »

They are-most glass sunroofs have had shades for years.

I will not own a car with a sunroof.

MGMcAnick
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Re: What is a 'sun roof'?

Post by MGMcAnick »

I've owned several cars with sunroofs. Some metal, some glass. The ONLY one that ever leaked did so because one of the drains at the back of the rectangle was plugged.
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BoSoxGal
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Re: What is a 'sun roof'?

Post by BoSoxGal »

BP, today’s auto sunroofs are all actually moonroofs - glass inserts with a retractable shade, they allow moonlight or sunlight into the vehicle when closed, or can lift or retract to allow full open mode and fresh air.

I’m not sure if any car manufacturers make vehicles with old fashioned sunroofs anymore - where there is just a metal panel that retracts whether automatically or manually. A friend of mine had the old fashioned kind in a old Saab - it even had a hand crank to open/close it.

I had the newer moonroof style in my Mazda 626 and really loved it, I almost always had the shade open to allow the extra light into the vehicle. I miss that moonroof, but it’s alarming to hear that breakage is common enough to be the focus of a CR piece.
Last edited by BoSoxGal on Mon Nov 27, 2017 7:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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datsunaholic
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Re: What is a 'sun roof'?

Post by datsunaholic »

Both of my '80s Datsun King Cabs have factory glass sunroofs along with my Pathfinder. They had a removable shade you could cover the glass (on the inside) but of course that part got lost by the prior owner(s) years ago.

The glass flips up, but can also be completely removed. I open them all the time, heck I sometimes have them open in the rain because my heater seems to only have 2 settings- 2 hot and 2 cold.

It makes no sense, but the Pathfinder is the one that leaks, even though it's 8 years NEWER than the 2 pickups (same exact latch assembly- right down to the part number). It doesn't leak IF I put the latch halfway between lock and unlock, but it won't stay in that position when driving.
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BoSoxGal
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Re: What is a 'sun roof'?

Post by BoSoxGal »

I checked out the article and it appears the glass shattering problem is fairly recent and associated with newer model cars that have panoramic sunroof systems, with large glass panels often curved with the line of the roof. Leakage isn’t even a problem discussed.

I don’t think I’d want a vehicle whose roof was well over 50% glass, that just doesn’t seem safe especially where tempered glass is the standard and not the much safer laminated glass required in windshields.
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Crackpot
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Re: What is a 'sun roof'?

Post by Crackpot »

How exactly is laminated glass “safer” than tempered glass?
Okay... There's all kinds of things wrong with what you just said.

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Crackpot
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Re: What is a 'sun roof'?

Post by Crackpot »

I’ll make it easy on you it isn’t. Tempered glass is much safer as the worst injury it iwll cause is minor lacerations. The problem is tempered glass breaks into many tiny pieces when broken making it possible that minor road debris could render the driver unable to see if it should break. The lamination also protects the driver from things coming in and them going through in the case of an accident. The different trypes of Glass used are done so because in thier particular situations they are the safer option.
Okay... There's all kinds of things wrong with what you just said.

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BoSoxGal
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Re: What is a 'sun roof'?

Post by BoSoxGal »

Read the article, maybe? If I was inartful in my verbiage, mea culpa. But windshields and side windows with the required safety glass technology don’t shatter into the passenger compartment the way these sunroofs do, hence the class action lawsuits pending against the auto manufacturers.
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Crackpot
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Re: What is a 'sun roof'?

Post by Crackpot »

You mean the one nobody linked?

https://www.consumerreports.org/car-saf ... -overhead/ BTW

I see that consumers reports auto reporting hasn’t improved.

The article is very misleading. Past identifying a real problem the rest is a convoluted mess. They blame manufacturers but note that standards (read governmental requirements) dictate glass type. They tout laminated glass without going into its pros and cons and even later mention that some sort of hybrid between tempered and laminated might be the best solution. They call for a recall even though the root cause hasn’t been identified occurrences are rare (even in the worst cases) and no serious injuries have been reported.

They bury the responsible actions (review and updating of standards) with unrealistic calls for recall and speculation about a “fix” that hasn’t gone beyond the most cursory scrutiny.

I mean they were bitching that the manufacturers would not give a time frame for finding a solution to the issue!? The don’t even know the cause yet how can you expect a reliable time frame?

I will say that the article did seem to be factually thorough but The facts were buried under loads of irresponsible speculation and counterproductive accusations
Okay... There's all kinds of things wrong with what you just said.

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Guinevere
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Re: What is a 'sun roof'?

Post by Guinevere »

On reading the article it seemed like the issues were confined to a few specific manufacturers. While still a problem, perhaps it is one less broad than the article and the OP suggest.
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Crackpot
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Re: What is a 'sun roof'?

Post by Crackpot »

Panoramic sunroofs are still a new option and the numbers listed along with the fairly large number of manufacturers would suggest it as a fairly broad problem. (Outside the 2014 issue which seems to have been resolved). That being said the numbers don’t bear out the hype they’ve made out of the story.
Okay... There's all kinds of things wrong with what you just said.

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