Skoda Superb Panoramic Sunroof - a cautionary tale

[Bejam]

I bought our MY 2019 Superb Sportline Estate 4x4 190 DHG as a used approved Skoda in August 2019, with 4500 miles - it was registered new in April 2019.

 

Until December 21st, we absolutely loved it - a few foibles here and there, but what a great cruiser, with fantastic grip, space and comfort etc.

 

On the way down the very busy M20, Saturday late morning, en route to skiing in Austria with a family-full car, the panoramic sunroof "exploded". Like a bomb going off.

 

Tiny sharp shards of glass everywhere - everyones' faces full of it. Turns out this is not laminated safety glass, but tempered glass.

 

I managed to get it on the hard shoulder and we crawled to Maidstone services - luckily just a mile further down the road. Everyone pretty shell-shocked, kids in tears.

 

Skoda Customer Services don't exist at weekends. Supplying dealer not much more use. Nobody can supply a car to take out of the UK.

 

Skoda CS is sub-contracted out to the AA at weekends. AA tech puts a couple of pieces of heavy duty cling film across the hole in the roof and says we're now officially safe to drive back to Sheffield.

 

Literally the busiest day of the year on the roads in torrential rain. Not fun.

 

As I reluctantly expected, Skoda UK say it's not their problem. But I played hard ball from the start - it's a company car, we have a legal firm on retainer and Skoda UK owned it for a month longer than we did.

 

2 weeks later, Skoda UK have paid for the replacement roof (a "gesture of goodwill" of course), but none of the damage to the car from flying glass - ripped centre console cover, scuffed plastic trim and chipped paint on the rear spoiler.

 

The car had 7000 miles on it - we had driven it 2500 miles.

 

Skoda UK say they've "never heard of it." Whoops, that'll be a bare-faced lie: https://www.yetiownersclub.co.uk/forum/9-newbies/8559-exploding-sun-roof.html

 

In a further bit of comedic word-soup, their email to me today says the dealer, "advised this is not a Manufacturing defect and as such, would not be covered by the Manufacturer’s warranty." This, based on a hole in the car where the roof used to be. My local dealer might have some clever people, but even they can't diagnose what caused the malfunction when all of the evidence is littered down the M20. Skoda CS' modus operandi seems to work around blaming dealer, the dealer then looks baffled and customer is left thinking, WTF? We'll have some more sport with Skoda UK Customer Services further down the line - I don't see this ending here.

 

The rational part of my brain says it's highly unlikely to happen again - these incidents are rare, but well documented, especially in the USA, where there's a class action in progress:

 

https://info.glass.com/causes-sunroof-explosions/

 

However, my wife is not getting back in the car, and I respect her concerns, so we're now having to fork out an additional £7K for a replacement car without a panoramic sunroof.

 

Food for thought, maybe, if you're considering a car with pan sunroof.

 

Local dealer has been otherwise very helpful.

 

Ben.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Dale_Stevens]

Wow!!!

 

My wifes 2017 VW Tiguan has a panoramic roof which has to have its own service at a certain mileage. I wonder if this is why?

[Bejam]

Dispute filed today with Motor Ombudsman.

 

Ben.

[Sagalout]

Any failure of a piece of toughened glass is a scary experience even when one may be used to working with it everyday!! So I can empathise with your distress at the occurrence. Luckily you managed to stay in control of your car and get to safety. VW/VAG have been aware of this phenomenon for at least 10 years so they cant deny it. However, the issue is, as ever, that glass can fail. If the failure was caused by a fault in the glass, its installation or the design then you have recourse but it could just as likely be the same situation as let us say you getting a stone in your windscreen and that needing to be replaced. You wouldn’t think of going to Skoda for that would you?

The ‘explosion’ Is the failure mode of tempered glass. Sudden failure of tempered glass is well known and can have many causes.

·       Internal defects within the glass such as nickel sulfide inclusions

·       Minor damage during installation such as nicked or chipped edges later developing into larger breaks normally radiating from point of defect.

·       Binding of the glass in frames causing stresses to develop as the glass expands and contracts due to thermal changes or deflects due to wind. Or in cars possibly any flexing the bodywork causing binding against the seals.  

·       Thermal stresses in the glass

·       Inadequate glass thickness to resist wind load

·       Impact damage. The size of the object can be very small especially with point loading. Anyone have one of those small impact hammers that used to be around so you could shatter the door window if trapped inside?

An internet search will show that the ‘expert’ opinion suggests an ever increasing number of panoramic sunroofs and their failure. There is some noise around the total size and the thinner profile glass (?) that may be increasing the risk of failure due to one or more of the above factors.

The issue for the car manufacturers is that laminated glass is both heavier and more expensive which is why they have mostly continued with tempered glass. However, if we look at buildings the codes for requiring laminated glass in areas where a failure would result in glass raining down have long been applied. It would seem reasonable then to require sunroofs to be laminated glass. Some companies already do use laminated glass but not on all models.

[Beachy]

You lost me when the mention of USA class action came in. They just love to claim. I would put it down to experience as it's very unlikely to happen to you again. Cheap car for someone.

[Sagalout]

19 minutes ago, Beachy said:

They just love to claim

 

19 minutes ago, Beachy said:

very unlikely to happen to you again

 

Not true in both cases.

The legal system is just different in the US and IMO provides more protection for the man in the street which manifests itself as more claims coming to judgement. Class actions can be very helpful in getting to the truth of the design, engineering and technical aspects of matters such as these.  

You can't predict that it wont happen again to the same person even if the overall likelihood of future failures is small.  

[Nick_H]

Bloody hell Ben that’s not good 😞 Great news the family are ok. I once saw the rear tailgate glass spontaneously explode on a neighbours Laguna. Went off like a bomb...

 

 As Mr Lout above says ( great post ) anything could have caused it and I would say replacement as good will is a pretty good result. The chances of it happening again would be slim ....

 

Personally if it was me I would take the roof pay to have the other bits put right and enjoy the car....

 

 

Edited 7 January, 2020 by Nick_H

[Sagalout]

I did think of suggesting a solution might be to apply some material to the inside surface of the sunroof like the tinted window stuff but then thought maybe not as it might lead to the whole sunroof falling into the car in one or two large lumps! Solve one problem and cause another; the engineers nightmare 😁

But it mught be worth some research and would be a hell of a lot cheaper than £7K.

Goos luck with it.

[mandp]

What a fabulously informative and thought provoking thread.

This is where this forum comes into its own.

Great job.

Edited 7 January, 2020 by mandp
addition

[Bap33]

45 minutes ago, Sagalout said:

I did think of suggesting a solution might be to apply some material to the inside surface of the sunroof like the tinted window stuff but then thought maybe not as it might lead to the whole sunroof falling into the car in one or two large lumps! Solve one problem and cause another; the engineers nightmare 😁

But it mught be worth some research and would be a hell of a lot cheaper than £7K.

Goos luck with it.

I also think, this could be an interesting preventive solution.

This could prevent from "Tiny sharp shards of glass everywhere - everyones' faces full of it". Additionally, it could help keeping the evidences to get what happened thanks to experts examinations.

I may consider this... 🤔 

[Superb Smartie]

I had this happen on my old O3 some years ago when the car was about 6 months old. there was a bang and some fragments fell in; however most of the roof held its shape until I knocked it in. To get to my destination I closed the blind and then knocked it in, using a vacuum cleaner to pick up the granular pieces.

 

 

Having worked for many years in the lighting industry for many years and many thousands of sheets of toughened glass go through our factory, we only saw one sheet fail, which was put down to Nickel Sulfide inclusions. Being 8m up a pole and pointing down there are not many other explanations. It does happen and is exceptionally rare. If you are that worried, you should get your side windows replaced as well, as they are toughened.

 

To tell thermally toughened glass, look at it through polarized glasses and you will see a mottled effect. Compare the front laminated screen to the side toughened glass and you will see the difference. This is the result of toughening and not caused by any window tinting. Toughened glass is used as it is safer than un-laminated glass as the granular fragments are allot less dangerous than extremely sharp shards from broken normal glass.

Edited 8 January, 2020 by Superb Smartie

[OldBoyScout]

Would it be possible to claim on insurance for this? (but not saying that Skoda are not in some way to blame).

 

[Dale_Stevens]

5 minutes ago, OldBoyScout said:

Would it be possible to claim on insurance for this? (but not saying that Skoda are not in some way to blame).

 

 

Maybe if you said it was an act of vandalism?

[Bejam]

29 minutes ago, OldBoyScout said:

Would it be possible to claim on insurance for this? (but not saying that Skoda are not in some way to blame).

 

I expect so, and that’s what Škoda UK would like me and others to do.

 

But that comes at increased costs to me in future premiums and an excess. 

 

I’ll wait to see what the Ombudsman says. If they uphold it, it’ll have a new digital footprint and a precedent for those that will inevitably experience this in the future. 

[jstallan]

23 hours ago, OldBoyScout said:

Would it be possible to claim on insurance for this? (but not saying that Skoda are not in some way to blame).

 

I was thinking that as well....  Wouldn't it be covered under windscreen policy (yes, I know it's not a windscreen!) ? 

[freelunch]

A lot of policies specifically exclude sun/panoramic roofs. My own comprehensive policy, for instance.

[IJWS15]

"It is a company car" so don't the company (or lease company) sort all this out?  When I had a company car they would have provided me with a pool/hire car until it was sorted out.

 

Toughened glass is used because it should break into many small pieces (as you found) which will only cause superficial cuts.  Large pieces are to be avoided because they can kill - there have been fatalities caused by walking into plate glass doors . . . .    No two pieces are guaranteed to break in the same way but they generally do.  Any piece of toughened glass will have an etched marking on it (in the UK usually a BS Kitemark). 

 

My daughter's last flat had a juliet balcony with doors of which the double glazed units had one toughened pane and one laminated pane, all within a 20mm glazed unit thickness including air gap so laminated is available at these thicknesses. Had to replace one unit (crack) and it was less that £100.  

 

It was probably caused by an impact but the impact may not have happened that day - the worst chips I have ever had on a car have been on the roof from stone impacts.

[Bejam]

I own the company - so it costs me to provide myself with another car 🙂.
 

The point of my post is to create a digital footprint. As I said, these incidents seem to be rare. However, consider the fact that all of the new Karoq, for example, with a reasonable trim level come with pan sunroof as standard.

 

So you could reasonably expect the incidents to increase as manufacturers spec sunroofs on lots of new models. 

 

I just want to hold the manufacturers to account.

 

You’re of course welcome to speculate on whether it was “probably” caused by x, y or z - I take it you must be a forensic glass specialist, so fill your boots with whatever springs to mind 😎. 

 

I just hope the next person this happens to reads posts like this before talking with Skoda CS. They’ll then hopefully know to play hard ball from the start and get the roof replaced FOC, like we have. By the way, the replacement sunroof is just under £1k fitted. 

 

If we just passed it on to our insurers, the problem will just rumble on anonymously.

 

Well, that’s my take on it all. 
 

The car turns into a 272 on Monday - that accounts for an additional £3k or so in the price to change. I couldn’t stomach forking out such a big chunk of change without getting an extra margin of fun chucked in. 😎

[Nick_H]

9 minutes ago, Bejam said:

I own the company - so it costs me to provide myself with another car 🙂.
 

The point of my post is to create a digital footprint. As I said, these incidents seem to be rare. However, consider the fact that all of the new Karoq, for example, with a reasonable trim level come with pan sunroof as standard.

 

So you could reasonably expect the incidents to increase as manufacturers spec sunroofs on lots of new models. 

 

I just want to hold the manufacturers to account.

 

You’re of course welcome to speculate on whether it was “probably” caused by x, y or z - I take it you must be a forensic glass specialist, so fill your boots with whatever springs to mind 😎. 

 

I just hope the next person this happens to reads posts like this before talking with Skoda CS. They’ll then hopefully know to play hard ball from the start and get the roof replaced FOC, like we have. By the way, the replacement sunroof is just under £1k fitted. 

 

If we just passed it on to our insurers, the problem will just rumble on anonymously.

 

Well, that’s my take on it all. 
 

The car turns into a 272 on Monday - that accounts for an additional £3k or so in the price to change. I couldn’t stomach forking out such a big chunk of change without getting an extra margin of fun chucked in. 😎

 

Appreciated I often do this just to flag stuff up in future. Have you ever owned a car with a decent amount of performance ? You will love the 272 they are great fun especially at the lights with a damp road

[Bejam]

Yep - a few Porsches, GTis, Ducatis, Aprilias and Fireblades in my time.

 

Looking forward to playing with the 272. I really appreciate the 4x4 on my current 190, so the extra power should be a giggle.

 

And no sunroof to spoil the fun... 😊

[Nick_H]

2 hours ago, Bejam said:

Yep - a few Porsches, GTis, Ducatis, Aprilias and Fireblades in my time.

 

Looking forward to playing with the 272. I really appreciate the 4x4 on my current 190, so the extra power should be a giggle.

 

And no sunroof to spoil the fun... 😊

 

Hahaha !! OK but now you will have some real performance ! 😉 What colour is it i'll keep an eye open for you kicking around ..

Edited 10 January, 2020 by Nick_H

[StewartM]

I'm afraid this thread sums up perfectly why I will never have a car with a panoramic glass roof.

 

Not even a Volvo, which is the only one I know does have laminated glass.

[Bejam]

9 hours ago, Nick_H said:

 

Hahaha !! OK but now you will have some real performance ! 😉 What colour is it i'll keep an eye open for you kicking around ..

It's a black magic one.

[sula_rob]

I’ve had sunroofs sin the last four (non-Škoda, but a few VAG) cars I’ve had, so this makes interesting reading... does it in theory apply to the smaller sunroofs you get on the Superb hatches too, or just the longer pano ones?

 

Rob

[Sagalout]

Both would fail in the same way. Opinion suggests the problem is more likely with pano roofs. A quick chat with Gertie Google will give you a picture of why.