I left work today and about to put my stuff in the passenger seat when I realized that my driver side window is in a thousand pieces.
Nothing is taken. CDs, money, etc...
Nothing else is wrong. Paint intact, wheels intact, interior intact.
all teh other cars parked nearby are fine.
I called the local police and they informed me that it's probably the heating of the window during the day that caused spontaneous shattering - he has seen this before.
When I brought the car to the dealer, the service manager said that he has NEVER heard of such a thing - it's not covered under the warrantee

I heard about it on NPR cartalk one time where the car window spontaneously broke due to cold temp. This doesn't sound likely b/c it's Norcal where the temperature got down to about 40.
so: either someone (accidentally) broke my window (but likely not vandals b/c nothing else is wrong. Maybe a kid shooting a BB gun?)
or
it broke by itself.

have any of you guys heard about such a thing?

http://www.cartalk.com/content/colum.../March/15.html

 

Never heard of it but I would call the insurance co and be done with it.

 

Aren't the windows like coated with somesort of temp protection?

 

still waiting for a quote from dealer but I don't think it's gonna meet deductable

 

whats the outcome?

 

yes, but not on a car window. After i moved into my house one of the windows cracked top to bottom. I heard a loud pop during a cold night, but didn't know what it was.

At first when i saw the window i thought a baseball or something had hit it, but after i looked at it i could tell there was no impact. I suspect that the drop in temp caused it to crack.

So it is def possible for glass to crack or shatter by itself.

 

I had the same thing happen to my older car one morning..i woke up and headed out to go to work and as i approached my car i noticed that the driverside window was smashed in...but there was still some pieces left attached and not completely blown into the car...first i thought someone smashed it....then the cop told me it could have been the cold weather last night.....nothing was taken (had an alpine fold out screen, alpine eq, JL amps and woofers, dvd player, etc etc)...all the cars on the block were okay..and the rest of my car was okay..i still think someone smashed it in.... never had anything happen after that.....

 

Yes, I have seen something like this before. it's only happens ones you wax you window and get it under the sun.

 

thanks for the replies.
this board is great.

I didn't wax my car window.
all the other cars parked nearby were OK. My car was one of the nicer ones.
probably some bored kids.

 

don't know yet. Dealer said parts were back up and it was (still is) the weekend. They'll call to give me a quote. Prelim quote is about $500.

 

Sounds like kids shooting out windows. Used to happen to my cousin all the time (apparently its a game called "alarm or no alarm?" or something)

 

they need to bring caning to the US - Michael Fay style