Exploding sunroof...wtf?!

This has caused me to troll the web on exploding sunroofs. Apparently this has been an issue for a while. I had a sunroof in my '89 Chevy S-10 and have one in my 2005 GMC Canyon. Never had an issue with either, although I've gone through 4 windshields between the 2 of them. That's what happens when you live in Northern Virginia and there's always something under construction. Daggone trucks violating the "Cover Your Load" laws.

The only reason I can see for these exploding outwards is that's the was the glass curves...it is slightly convex, so I would not expect it to implode against the curve. But I'm not a fizz-uh-cyst.
 
was on my way back to NorCal from Las Vegas earlier today with the wife in our 19 cx5 touring. About an hour outside of town, with no warning or any sort of impact, the damn sunroof just exploded! Needless to say the loud noise followed by a glass shower scared the crap out of us. Upon closer inspection it looks like the glass exploded outwards, as if cabin pressure was too high. Decided to just drive home with the sunroof cover closed to keep from getting more glass all over, but then it started to rain as we got in to Tehachapi. Thanks to a helpful Shell station clerk that supplied some free cardboard to go along with some duct tape I purchased, was able to patch it up with lots of cursing.

While I was rainproofing our newly porous sunroof, a Suburban pulled up next to us. The driver asked if we were okay and what happened, since apparently he was right next to us when the damn thing blew. He told us he saw a bunch of debris fly up out of the roof before we hastily pulled over to assess the damage and brush off all the glass crumbs.

Anyways...going to talk to my service manager and insurance agent tomorrow to figure out how to get this handled. Because of this incident, my cts-v wagon gets to sit outside in the rain tonight for the first time while the Mazda occupies the caddys space in the garage.

Here are a few pics, though I havent yet figured out how to rotate them.

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Were the pictures deleted? I have not been able to see them.
 
I haven't figured the new forum out yet.

There's a profile setting for seeing someone's signature in their posts, but I have not found where to create a signature.

There's a profile setting for getting alerts when someone interacts with my Album, but I cannot figure out where my Album (or anyone else's Album) is.

That being said, I just went to the Show Me Your Wheels thread and I see pics from earlier this month and from March (as far back as I looked).

Have you lost your pics or are you having a different issue?
 
I haven't figured the new forum out yet.

There's a profile setting for seeing someone's signature in their posts, but I have not found where to create a signature.

There's a profile setting for getting alerts when someone interacts with my Album, but I cannot figure out where my Album (or anyone else's Album) is.

That being said, I just went to the Show Me Your Wheels thread and I see pics from earlier this month and from March (as far back as I looked).

Have you lost your pics or are you having a different issue?
I am new here. Trying to figure it out as well.
 
I assume this is a good reason to always keep the sunroof cover closed as it will keep the glass from shattering into the cabin. Or, will the breakage of glass push in the cover?
 
I am new here. Trying to figure it out as well.

I've been a mod and a user support guy on a forum using the prior format (vBulletin). This one is new to all of us. I believe it's recently developed .

Have you lost pictures or the ability to view them?
 
No ideas where the pics went. I’ll try to repost later.

No idea of replacement cost yet, but will ask when i go pick up the car. I do know that they have a lot of glass to clean up, and my SA said he’d have to drop the headliner to get it properly cleaned. There is glass everywhere, from the dash to the cargo area. Sounds like a total PITA

After what happened to ours, I would definitely have the sunroof laminated on any cx5 or other vehicle that is known to have the potential for this issue. The glass shower could have easily caused an accident. Also lucky that neither of us got glass in our eyes
 
Similar thing happened to a friend's Mazda 626 back in college some 15 years ago. But his whole glass panel was sucked off the car on the highway. Because of that, to this day I do not drive my Integra at interstate speeds with the sunroof open (glass slides back above the roof), but only popped up for ventilation instead. I only drive with sunroof open on surface streets.
 
o_Oo_Oo_Oo_Oo_O

I had a sunroof on my Chevy S-10 for 15 years, one on my 2005 GMC Canyon that's still intact, and one on a 1990 Volvo I drove until a few years ago. Never had anything like that happen.
 
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Just picked up our cx5 with new tinted sunroof. Warranty repair cost was around $600 parts & labor, and customer pay would have likely been 2-300 more. Dealer could have done a better job cleaning up glass in interior, but overall quite satisfied with how things were handled.
 
That's good news.

Do you think all the glass was removed from behind the headliner?

And one would think that the stuff that's visible to the customer would be done especially well. Some people truly have no pride.
 
They actually didn’t do a horrible job. All of the little cubes of shattered safety glass were gone (unsure about behind headliner but will check somehow), but there are still little tiny shards (looks like glitter) scattered around interior...ie in cup holders, armrest pockets, between console and seat, cargo area, etc. Might just pay my local detailer to finish the job properly.

Good to have our cx5 back though. Not sure why, but our 23k mile awd feels better to drive than the 3k mile otherwise-identical fwd loaner we were given. Ours just feels “tighter”, though the fwd loaner gave an extra 2-3mpg.
 
Good to have our cx5 back though. Not sure why, but our 23k mile awd feels better to drive than the 3k mile otherwise-identical fwd loaner we were given. Ours just feels “tighter”, though the fwd loaner gave an extra 2-3mpg.

That's interesting.

I was behind the wheel of a 2018 Grand Touring and then the 2019 Reserve, so did not drive any FWDs. I was reading that the rear wheels of the 4WD are always receiving 2% of the power so that if/when the AWD kicks in, it will not be a "stark" transition. I wonder if that "always 2%" is what you're feeling. Or maybe the extra weight in the AWD drive train makes a "feels more solid" difference.
 
Two main differences I noticed...

First, the steering on our awd seems to have a little more weight and feel than the fwd loaner we got, as well as better turn-in. Secondly, the awd feels torquier like maybe it has a shorter final drive ratio.

Even my wife said she noticed a difference and that the loaner felt “looser”
 
Two main differences I noticed...

First, the steering on our awd seems to have a little more weight and feel than the fwd loaner we got, as well as better turn-in. Secondly, the awd feels torquier like maybe it has a shorter final drive ratio.

Even my wife said she noticed a difference and that the loaner felt “looser”

Good call, SG.

This is data for the non-turbo trims from the 2019 CX-5 spec sheet:

CX-5 Brochure_drivetrain.jpg


This is for the turbo trims. Looks like a different transmission altogether:

CX-5 Brochure_drivetrain_turbo.jpg


The (1) footnote for the SkyActive Drive on the non-turbo specs refers to a trademark disclaimer. That (*) footnote is a typo on the Reserve specs...it's a (1) for the Signature. They made the same typo on the Reserve specs for the Towing Capacity footnote.

I tried to Attach the spec sheet, but the file size is too large for the forum (1.368MB). I can't see a way to "shrink" the file size of a pdf.
 
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This same thing happened to me the other day.. my sunroof, moonroof as Mazda refers to it, exploded as we where just driving down the road. No impact on it, nothing around to throw or kick up something on it. Just BOOM. like a M80 went off inside. Luckily the headliner cover was shut so it contained all the tempered shattered glass pieces.

But now the local mazda service rep is telling me Mazda doesn't cover glass under its warranty. So she will have to run it through corporate to see if they will cover it.

@Stickygreen anything I can say or do that you would suggest? Its a 2018 cx-9 with 16k miles. I figured the warranty would cover it.
 

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