Honda -- Hello! My sunroof also exploded two days ago. The temperature was 55 degrees and I was out in the middle of nowhere in Idaho, miles from any town or house. No one had passed me or come by in many minutes, I was doing 65, and the sunroof just went up like an explosion. It looked like a crown with all the shards sticking up. My Honda dealer said something hit it -- NO, NOTHING HIT IT. It's a 2012 Honda Accord EX. Honda better start owning up to this defect.

 

I am curious about this as my 2015 also has a sunroof. Luckily it has not shattered!
My Accord was built in Marysville. Could the plant's quality control be inferior at each building location?
I have noticed small quality defects on my wife's CR-V that was made in Mexico.

 

This 2012 Accord was built in Marysville also. Now that I can see the sunroof glass, it's apparent that the glass is really thin. I'm wondering about glass fatigue from being in the slipstream. No matter, Honda needs to fix this. I'm so disappointed that I'm thinking about going to a Toyota Camry. That's a good car.

 

Google produced a link to a class action lawsuit for exploding sunroofs. W/I that link is explanation that designs have reduced thickness (lower weight) may be source of problem.

I also found a Wall Street Journal article:

http://wjla.com/news/local/7-on-your...t-think-105226

Nothing definitive, but sounds like a design defect. Too many instances of this happening.

good luck

 

On Aug. 15, 2017, My 2015 Honda Accord Sunroof glass simply explodes for no reason. This is anywhere from $400 to $700 to replace. Not covered by insurance. This needs to be investigated why this keep happening. 😢😢😢😢

 

I have a 2011 Honda Accord. Was driving on the highway for about 30 min and "bang" - I could hear the air coming through the closed interior sun roof cover. Pulled over and like above, a huge hole in my sunroof! Was not going under an overpass, was not in back of a large truck or other vehicle. Really strange!! And what a pain as 30 min later it started raining!!!

 

One thing I'm curious about and what seems to be a common denominator reading this thread is that mostly everyone mentioned they had their shade closed in the car when the "explosion" happened. Wonder if it has something to do with it being closed for some reason? Jeez if it was open at the time you could really get injured with glass fragments.

 

Hi,

I apologize if resurrecting threads from the dead is frowned upon in this forum, but I created an account just to reply to this thread.

The date was mid-August 2019. I was driving my Accord '08 EX-L down the highway, when my sunroof exploded. The cover below it ("shade") was open (what's the point of having a sunroof otherwise) and we were plastered with glass. Interestingly, the 'explosion' seemed to be 'upwards', so maybe we were spared a little. Again, to be clear, glass was sticking upwards. I am pretty certain nothing hit me. I have no explanation of the incident. The weather wasn't that hot. I suspect chassis pressure on the frame.

I do have a comprehensive insurance, but I've foolishly selected a $500 deductible, which means I was on the hook for $500, whatever the repair cost is. And I did do a repair cost research. Didn't even bother going to the dealer, because I knew their quote would begin at $1,100, maybe more. Called a repair shop, they quoted me $350 just for the labor. As for the part itself - a brand new OEM sunroof glass costs about $350 when discounted. So I was supposed to pay $700 for a non-dealer repair with my own brought parts? Not this guy. A second-hand sunroof assembly* (I'll come back to that later) goes between $75 and $150 on eBay. Found a local salvage yard that gave me the assembly* for $125. Installed it myself, it's about 30 min of work and you need just two screwdrivers (the important one is Torx 25).

Now, for the 'assembly' part. If you read 'assembly' somewhere, it means the whole thing - glass, motor, huge metal frame thing. You don't need that. All you need is the 'glass'. It can be bought for about $30-$40 from a salvage yard, if you find or are patient enough to wait for one. My advice - don't pay for new glass/assembly and repairs, do it yourself for $40.

When it happened, I was still 700 miles away from home, so needed to improvise ...

So, here's the sunroof, as it exploded. Not just cracked. Exploded.


Bought some WalMart tape and nylon


And taped it all up, to avoid water damage to the car and also reduce noise


Turns out, at 85 mph, that tape just comes off so I had to stop every few miles to re-tape it, until I reached the next WalMart and got the 'MAX strength' tape (white):


A day after I got home, I bought the 'assembly', which is all of this, for $125. I needed just the glass part (comes with rubber around it and is held by 2 bolts on each side).


Easy to replace, trust me, I am not a mechanic. This video has helped me a lot, though -


I should mention - cleaning up all the shattered glass from the mechanism is very important and also extremely difficult. I've used a vacuum cleaner and a screwdriver to get to the difficult to reach parts.