After a little bit of a rough stretch last month, my family and I wanted to go on a little day trip.
So we headed out of town and had a really nice day.
We stopped at a Costco for gas, and just as we were about 10 minutes into our drive home, we heard a loud explosion.
I was driving and I thought we had *maybe* been shot at. It was THAT loud.
Looking in the rear-view mirror, I noticed glass flying off our 2017 Hyundai Santa Fe and into traffic behind us.
I pulled off the road, opened the door, and got up on the driver’s seat to look at what had happened. And as the roof came into view, I saw a giant gaping hole in the top of our car. We hadn’t been shot at — no our sunroof merely EXPLODED!
Exploding Sunroof
Since 1995, there have been at least 208 car models and 35 automotive brands listed in complaints to the federal government about exploding sunroofs.
Glass.com – Shattered Sunroof Explained
Thankfully our soft panel was closed and all of the broken glass shards fell onto that instead of us (as you can see in the picture).
To my knowledge, no other vehicles were damaged and thankfully, sunroofs are designed to shatter into a million pieces, so no giant shards of glass were cutting up tires or anything.
I’ve been in several accidents over the years, but NEVER had anything like this happen! It was hard to figure out the next steps to take.
It was Sunday night, and nearly EVERYTHING was closed.
We were about 2 hours from our house, and our car was pretty much undrivable at the moment, as pieces of glass would continue to fly off into traffic….and on top of that, it was getting colder by the minute.
Thankfully, there was an auto parts store nearby and it was still open. I went inside and asked them for advice.
They offered some cardboard and duct tape….so I went to work.
Within 30 minutes I had the hole in the sunroof covered up, and bigger chunks of glass removed, and now we had to hope that I had done a good enough job to drive the 2 hours back to our house.
Incredibly, cardboard and duct tape really can fix anything, and while I couldn’t go above 60 mph, the cardboard patch job held up and we made it home safely!
That was on November 10th.
Warranties, Lawsuits, Insurance, & Delay Tactics
My wife was texting with her friends throughout the entire process above, and one of them informed us that there were several lawsuits against Hyundai and their exploding sunroofs.
The result of the US lawsuit was that they would extend coverage up to 10 years or 120,000 miles. So we would theoretically be covered under both (or so we thought).
Having been a Hyundai owner for years, we have never had any trouble, and seeing as they have a great warranty I figured this would be an easy issue to resolve.
The next day, I drove our patched-up car straight into the dealership.
My service guy looked up our VIN number and told me that our vehicle was NOT covered under an extended warranty.
I was surprised, but he offered a number to their customer support team that “will take care of it.”
Now comes the biggest runaround you’ll ever see!
I called their customer support, who was very nice and friendly and opened up a case for me. They told me that I would hear back from in the next 24-48 hours with the next steps…
That was OVER four weeks and forty phone calls ago, and we are still waiting!
I followed up nearly every day and we simply were getting nowhere.
Boy do some of these companies really know how to give you the runaround.
Either due to incompetence or simply strategy (probably the latter), Hyundai and other companies like them know that you’ll likely get something like this taken care of through your insurance company thus saving them the costs.
But what I don’t appreciate as a customer was being assured it would be taken care of, only to then get the runaround.
In fact, I later found out that the NHTSA closed its exploding sunroof investigation because it couldn’t “identify sufficient evidence of a safety-related defect.”
So it should be fairly easy for them to state that while there was a lawsuit that covered some older cars, this doesn’t fall under an extended warranty, and it is best to go through insurance. Period.
Would it be better to be straightforward with your customers about the issue? YES.
Customer service will win or lose you customers, and in this instance, it has lost a customer.
Taking Matters Into My Own Hands
The last thing we wanted was to be out of a car for a long period.
In fact, the first thing I did after our accident was to file a claim with my insurance company.
Then I called several glass companies and found that our particular glass was on a 4-6 week backorder. Yikes!
Because of that information, we decided to hold off on getting a rental until we finalized our claim or heard back from Hyundai.
Things were proceeding slowly with BOTH insurance and hearing back from Hyundai, so we were going on 3 weeks without an estimate, or repair in sight.
And on top of that, it was now Thanksgiving week, which would further delay things.
But you can’t always trust the first person you talk to.
When the insurance adjustor came back with the estimate it was for a piece of recycled glass.
At first, I was aghast since the glass companies I had talked to were only willing to deal with OEM parts.
However, I called around to more glass companies and found a company that would warranty the workmanship and felt confident that the recycled glass would be just as good as OEM, if not the exact same thing that is being sold and remarketed as OEM by the dealership (or so I was told).
So finally, after 4 weeks, we had a piece of glass secured for us and a scheduled repair.
The repair man showed up, and the repair lasted….1 hour.
All I could do was laugh!
1 exploded sunroof.
40 phone calls.
30 days of waiting on a repair.
My wife and I sharing 1 car for an entire month.
And after ALL THAT, the repair involved was nothing more than vacuuming out glass and securing the new sunroof with a few screws. It was truly wild!
The Lessons
So this was a very long-winded way of telling you guys what the hell I’ve been up to the last month.
It was a strange event, and certainly stressful dealing with the aftermath, but we did learn a few things in the process:
- We can mostly make it with only one car. It’s not ideal, but not horrible either.
- Hyundai (and other brands) will likely do EVERYTHING to avoid responsibility even amidst lawsuits.
- Progressive while inexpensive insurance, was slow and not great throughout this process. While they did end up getting the job done, most of the actual work was left to me to figure out.
- Weird events DO happen and the best you can do is try to take charge and get as much information as possible. I was led a bit astray thinking that this would be a warranty repair, but it turned out that it was much faster and more convenient to go through my insurance.
- Make sure you have a $0 deductible for glass on your car insurance policy.
- Don’t trust one bullet point. Make sure you talk to as many companies and get as many quotes and opinions as possible.
- Minor issues like this take time and ADD to the stress that we all already go through in life. Hard to avoid, but best to deal with quickly.
- Hyundai customer service is getting worse and is currently untrustworthy.
- Sunroof repairs aren’t as big of a deal as everyone online seems to make them.
- Cardboard and duct tape can do wonders.
Well, I know this isn’t my usual stuff, but at least now you’ll know what to do if your sunroof explodes!
Have you ever had something like this happen? What was your experience like? Please share your horror car stories below!