What you should do about your exploding sunroof: What you need to know

QUESTION

Dear John,

I recently purchased a 2021 Mercedes Benz CLA250, all is well with the car until recently, when I was driving on the highway, and out of a sudden, my sunroof exploded.

My first thought was, maybe something must have hit it. However, upon reviewing my dashcam footage, I could not see any visible debris or stone on the road.

Upon searching on the internet about exploding sunroofs, I realize this has happened to people, many due to manufacturing defects of the glass they use. You have also mentioned before in your previous post (unsure if I am right) that it is almost impossible for a stone chip to shatter my sunroof at my given driving condition.

I called Mercedes Benz Australia in hope (naive I know) to get some answers, only to be given the runabout with different "customer service" agent and told different things. After jumping through countless calls to different people, they finally agreed to have the car towed to the local dealership. To my shock I get a call from the dealership saying, we receive this car that was towed to us, what are we doing about it? There seems to be no communication with Mercedes head office and their dealership partners.

I was also given the good old (and was warned about by many stories I have seen online with such issues), well I don't think Mercedes Australia is going to do anything about it since it seems most likely you hit a stone or something...

So ultimately, my question is what are the chances that Mercedes Benz will deal with this as a manufacturing defect and fix it under warranty, I don't like getting bullied by big corporations trying their luck to see if a person will back off when they make things hard and to deny responsibility or I am better off just being what they call a "rich idiot" (maybe I already am since I bought a Mercedes) and just going to my insurance, pay my excess and get a downgrade in my rating 1 that I had for the past 8 years.

Thank John. Love your videos!

Regards,

Leslie

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ANSWER

Hello Leslie,

Thank you for the kind words.

Basically I think you should fight them. They should cover it under warranty because the damage cannot be caused by some random projectile lofted upwards by some other vehicle’s tyres. It’s owner abuse or neglect or incompetence - it’s a manufacturing or design defect of some kind - however small or unaccounted for by the carmaker.

Now, be warned, Mercedes-Benz Australia can be infuriating to deal with, so it could be an endurance event. Ready yourself for a fight, which you can start by reading about Australian Consumer Law and understanding the Consumer Guarantees for Acceptable Quality. This legislation is over a decade old and you can thank the previous Labor federal government for implementing them.

In the meantime, here's ‘Maddie Ross’, who had the same thing happen in her Hyundai many years ago: https://autoexpert.com.au/posts/another-hyundai-sunroof-shatters-spontaneously. I’d suggest you use her situation as a case study.

And here’s the engineering professor who says a projectile from another vehicle cannot break the sunroof: https://abc7chicago.com/archive/8026317/. Also, some general background from a law firm in the US: https://www.classlawgroup.com/exploding-sunroof/ on the same issue.

Don’t let them take advantage of you. Tell them I send my regards.

Sincerely,

John Cadogan

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