Exploding sunroof Lexus LX 570 2016

[ahmed777]

On 6^th May 2018 , I was driving my 2016 sport plus LX 570 at around 02:30 pm with a temperature of nearly 40. The vehicle was under the shade since early morning  . This is my usual time to leave work . It was only 5 minutes after I started driving , I heard a horrible sound over my head similar to a helicopter sound ! I was driving at 60 Kilometres per hour and I did pass underneath any bridge . In addition , my colleague who left work at the same time , was driving his car behind me as an eye witness . I stopped the vehicle to inspect to find the sunroof  in a scary condition . It had exploded with an obvious hole of 10 cm and the rest of  sunroof was still together in tiny pieces . Amazingly , the edges of the broken hole were pushed outside due to the explosion pressure . Luckily , I had the interior sliding cover of the sunroof closed .When , I opened the sliding cover , multiple glass pieces of different sizes fell on the interior of the car and the seats ! I rushed immediately to the local Lexus  dealer who took photos of the vehicle and forwarded them to the warranty department to decide. Unfortunately , after 2 days , they contacted me to inform me that explosion cannot happen in its own and this is due to external hit !! I have browsed the net and searched a lot during these 2 days to find that there are enormous amount of similar cases .  I saw the thread '' Exploding Rx350 sunroof'' by hemimom in November 13 , 2011 in general chat in lexus ownerclub.com and the swift positive  response from the dealer to change the sunroof under warranty . The local dealer could not provide a logical scientific explanation despite the fact that I showed them few articles on the web about the same scenario !  They could not explain the outwards lifted edges of the exploded sunroof ! 

Two months back , while washing the car , I noticed that there multiple bends in the bonnet  .I contacted the same local dealer who tried to negotiate that this happened due to an external hit . Interestingly , there were no scratches on the paint and the pattern of the bends does not favour an external hit !! I was obvious manufacturing fault . After 3 weeks of negotiation , they accepted to change the bonnet under warranty after a pressure and multiple frustrating meetings with them !

I`m waiting for an official report from the dealer in Sultanate of Oman which should include the scientific reasons for such rejection !

[pj8708]

Hi Ahmed,

You are in the right. This has been not a common problem but as you pointed out it is well known by anyone building cars. It becomes more interesting when you see there are other car makes that have the same problem. That makes me believe that there has to be a problem with the manufacturer of the glass. It is the only thing that makes sense.

Good luck to you.

Paul