Rear window shattered

The rear window spontaneously shattered yesterday - I’d just got something out of the boot and shut the door. I heard it happen just a few minutes later.

The window must have dropped to allow me to open the door, and I’d like to think I would notice if it had risen again before I shut it. There was nothing there that could have jammed the window.

Only other thing to note - I changed the regulator, but that was months ago. Could I have misaligned the window? How should it be done?

Got one from the local scrappie today - £20 - so all’s well.

The window on mine sometimes tries to close against the jam/seal rather than sitting behind it. To avoid it I usually close the door with gentle pressure on the window so it sits properly. I guess it's possible yours did the same and the motor kept pressure on the window, forcing it up against the seal?

Sometimes these things just happen.
As long as the window closes square in the body aperture then it's adjusted ok.
I changed my cables a few weeks black. My widow has leaked at the top ever since. Which I can't quite work out.

last year I put one of my motors in the garage when I got home, came to get in it next morning to find a 18" crack across the screen.
Hard to believe anyone opens the back door without even subconsciously looking at the window. Electronics wise, there are too many components and safety features preventing the window being raised or the door from being opened unless the window is inched. If for some act of god it inched back up, which you and I and no doubt others are certain it did not, there is no way you would have closed the door without it shattering immediately. If you misaligned the window carrier even the slightest, or if something was not tightened that came loose, I reckon you would have noticed.
Unlike some older power windows, modern control units will stop the window motor as soon as the window stops moving, if this had a fault, and the motor was not stopped when the window stopped moving, your motor would burn out or set on fire, if the fuse failed to blow first.

I hope you find something wrong, otherwise it would bug the hell out of me, every time I closed the back door for weeks I would be waiting for the window to shatter .

Devilish said:

I hope you find something wrong, otherwise it would bug the hell out of me, every time I closed the back door for weeks I would be waiting for the window to shatter .

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This will be me for the next few months

I’ve gone over events - I remember the bloody dog had left a scrap of wood on the edge of the boot, and as I tried to shut the door it stopped it. I wonder if this stressed the window, perhaps even made a crack, which propagated quickly after a short delay. This tempered glass is a funny thing.

I’ve said this before, but I’d love to have five minutes with the guy who designed the dropping window, a well-studded baseball bat in hand.

It is possible it may have done who knows what to the damper that goes along the bottom of the door, or a hinge.
Doubt that you slammed the door, but hard to say how much fulcrum point force was put by the wood on the door, that is frameless, holds a spare wheel, and is damper assisted.
Ok they all work with each other, put your hand where the wood was, and let someone shut the door.

The rear window has been known to occasionally shatter when the boot door is shut. I guess it's down to uneven pressure and a bit of bad luck. I would also agree with what someone said above - some times it just happens. It has also been known to shatter if the heater element is on, and some of the copper track is broke'd causing uneven heating of the screen. This only happens when it's ice cold normally. Rear windows breaking/cracking is rare though.

As for the bloke who designed the electric's for the rear window etc... I've met him. Nice chap.

Devilish said:

It is possible it may have done who knows what to the damper that goes along the bottom of the door, or a hinge.
Doubt that you slammed the door, but hard to say how much fulcrum point force was put by the wood on the door, that is frameless, holds a spare wheel, and is damper assisted.
Ok they all work with each other, put your hand where the wood was, and let someone shut the door.

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I tend not to slam the boot, as I’m always painfully aware of that window flapping about. Hopefully it was just a one-off.

Mine exploded after switching on the rear window heater one winter....

Hippo said:

As for the bloke who designed the electric's for the rear window etc... I've met him. Nice chap.

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I’m sure he is... I’d just like to lay a few things at his ‘door’, or at least that of the back door team:
Microswitch and lock problems
Rear handle rotting and falling off
Regulator cables rusting and breaking - can’t open the door to fix it
Rear light holder losing paint
Fish tank in the boot
Rear window that drops - what for? To let exhaust fumes in as you drive? To let the dog out at traffic lights? To allow loose stuff in the boot to swirl about? It never stays where I want it, but has a mind of its own.
Numberplate lights with riveted connections that corrode and go open circuit

An overcomplicated system, wide open to faults, that achieves an unnecessary result. You’ll notice it wasn’t carried over to the FL2.

guineafowl21 said:

I’m sure he is... I’d just like to lay a few things at his ‘door’, or at least that of the back door team:
Microswitch and lock problems
Rear handle rotting and falling off
Regulator cables rusting and breaking - can’t open the door to fix it
Rear light holder losing paint
Fish tank in the boot
Rear window that drops - what for? To let exhaust fumes in as you drive? To let the dog out at traffic lights? To allow loose stuff in the boot to swirl about? It never stays where I want it, but has a mind of its own.
Numberplate lights with riveted connections that corrode and go open circuit

An overcomplicated system, wide open to faults, that achieves an unnecessary result. You’ll notice it wasn’t carried over to the FL2.

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It filled a design criteria at the time. Having the retractable window is also necessary for the 3 door with the roof removed.
I don't find the rear window particularly unreliable on its own. But as you mentioned. The door on the whole does has some issues. All can be overcome, if the owner has the time or patients.

I think it's a handy gimmick. Good in summer as with a dog guard in place you can leave it open on hot days, with some semblance of security.

guineafowl21 said:

I’m sure he is... I’d just like to lay a few things at his ‘door’, or at least that of the back door team:
Microswitch and lock problems
Rear handle rotting and falling off
Regulator cables rusting and breaking - can’t open the door to fix it
Rear light holder losing paint
Fish tank in the boot
Rear window that drops - what for? To let exhaust fumes in as you drive? To let the dog out at traffic lights? To allow loose stuff in the boot to swirl about? It never stays where I want it, but has a mind of its own.
Numberplate lights with riveted connections that corrode and go open circuit

An overcomplicated system, wide open to faults, that achieves an unnecessary result. You’ll notice it wasn’t carried over to the FL2.

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The FL2 doesn't have a wheel ont rear door so it can be raised in the air like most cars instead of opening side ways. Also as nodge said they wanted to cater for both 3 and 5 door with the same set-up. The slight drop when opening is necessary to allow the door to open without catching the glass int rubber seal at the top. If it didn't do this then they would have had to come up with something different. They must have thought about other methods while coming up with this idea. Getting a good seal with a large piece of glass supported from the bottom only is difficult.

I found your list quite funny. None of them problems on my hippo.
It did once refuse to open the rear door. I never found the fault and it seemed to disappear. Everything electrical was ok.

I agree there's a lot of sensors/switches but they're all there for a reason. They need to know when it's up/down and control it. Most cars use cables to move the glass. The FL1 suffers a bit more on the rear door. This may be down to the weight of the glass or the glass weight being near the limit of the cable. When yer consider just how good the rest of the vehicle is yer can let them oft a little issue like this.

All said and done, it's the disco owners fault. Yup it was them who first had the tailgate glass drop on their disco's. They never put LR oft the idea so it stayed in place. The FL1 tailgate design was fitted to disco's shipped to Japan for "customer evaluation". A trial to see how people reacted and what they thought of it. It was the disco owners who didn't foresee the potential problems. Probably because they had a lot more to worry about.

Lots of support for the Fl rear door. OK, I’ll put it into the category of ‘nice while it works, but an enormous pain in the erse when it doesn’t’.

Maybe just a plain baseball bat, then.

Nodge68 said:

Sometimes these things just happen.
As long as the window closes square in the body aperture then it's adjusted ok.
I changed my cables a few weeks black. My widow has leaked at the top ever since. Which I can't quite work out.

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When I changed my cables etc on the first calibrate it did not go fully up - seemed too tight to the seal - so as a starting point I set the thing as loose as possible - went up OK and only JUST kissed the seal - and guess what -the fishpool dried up and never came back