Hatch window broken repeatedly
 

I have searched and can't find this having been covered. My car has had the hatch window break out while the car was un-attended twice in the last month. While I was not with the car either time, both times I am fairly sure that nobody broke it out. The circumstances were the same both times. The hatch appeared to blow outward as there was much glass and other things maybe 15 feet away from the car. Looking at the glass reminants I can't see any area where there was signs of any sort of impact origin. Weather was different each time. I had the sunroof open once so it was not pressure buildup inside the car.

I will also mention that when I got the car I found glass down in the spare tire well which indicated that there was probably a broken hatch at least one time before I got the car.

I am going to replace the hatch again. This time I am not going to install the lift supports (at least for now). I plan to replace the hatch gasket and check for irregularities under the hatch gasket.

Any ideas of what might have caused this and what I can do differently to prevent it in the future?

Sounds like your car has a ghost.


I had the passenger side window on two of my Parts mustangs go out the same way. None of the other 8 cars in the junk yard had anything happen to them. Still have no clue what happened.

Has the car ever been wrecked? Maybe there is some type of torsional stress.

Are you replacing the glass alone, or the glass and the hatch.

If just the glass, I had a car for which the framing itself had popped a weld and it was putting pressure on the glass. Replacing the entire frame solved the problem.

No frame on the first gen to replace. The hatch is only glass.

This is a truely odd situation. The only thing I can think of is that the hinges may be binding, or are over tight and stressing the glass when it is forced to stay latched.

I would think that having the hinge or latch bolts too tight, or a lack of rubber washers/insulators would be about the only thing that could cause the window to bust on it's own. Having the latch adjusted too far down could be adding to the stress on the glass.
Anywhere there is a hole in glass, there is a weak point. Having proper isolators around the hardware is essential to relieving as much stress as possible.

Is any stereo equipment missing? Just kidding These hatches are really tough. I've tried to throw a concrete block through one and it bounced off. Kentetsu has you on the right track I think. Take out seal and see if the gap is consistant. Then make sure all the plastic isolators are in place between any glass and metal hardware. A combination of tension and a bolt rubbing somewhere to start a chip could do it. Otherwise its a ghost :D

Sounds like my hatch with the 15" turned up!

sorry i'll stop attacking your car now :D

in all seriousness you said the car has never been in an accident?if the PO replaced the hatch, and the body is perfect (non-accident car) then maybe where the hinges attach to the roof itself are tweaked one one way or the other causing stress.

How about this...

Suppose the strike bar on the car (as Rouge mentioned) is sitting too low and when the hatch is closed, there too much pressure in the hatch... This is the interesting part... As the car heats or cools during the day/night, maybe that pressure is increasing as the body expands or contracts???

Just a WAG.

Update on my hatch window:

The car has never been wrecked. The hinges were not too tight I am sure. I replaced the glass with one fron a friend last night. I checked the gasket and it seems fine, but I think the right side seems compressed more than is typical. I checked the hinges to see if maybe they had been swapped left to right (and compared to my daughters FB sitting next to it) and they appeared to not have been. The hatch closes fairly easily. Just about equal to all the other RX7's I have owned. I may losen this just a little. I also plan to order a new hatch gasket. I also have not re-attached the lift rods for the moment. My car also has rear wiper. The new window is also a rear wiper window, but I did not re-install the wiper assembly at the moment. I simpley duct taped over the holes for now.

The ghost theory is the only one that seems possible at this point. I will research it fruther. Anyone know any exorcists?

I can get you a voodoo priestess but she says you have to supply a monkey paw and blood from a japanese chicken. I guess the JAPANESE chicken part is very important for the mazdas. :D

I've heard of cans of tire sealant exploding in the back of hatchbacks before and breaking the glass. But if this happened you should have some evidence.

Sure that you don't have some HighSchool kids with a pelet, or CO2 powered BB gun in the neighborhood.

One time was in a safe area at my house. Very probably not a kid breaking out the window. The other time was on the base in the parkling lot at work. No "kid" can get on the base. No "common enemy" at the two places.

maybe heat did it or somthin to do with somethin like that did it....do you crack your windows when it is hot. Do you have the correct hatch struts(maybe they are too strong) Maybe it was just fitted wierd, you can adjust according to the haynes manual.....God bless, hope you figure it out

I like this one. My '80 had it's latch housing sitting too low, requiring excessive force to latch the hatch. The housing's bolt points are slotted IIRC, allowing vertical adjustment.

What kind of time period passed between hatch explosions?

About 2 weeks passed between the two. FWIW, before this I had not changed the hatch or the adjustments or the struts since about a year prior (when I got the car). When I got it I put the lift struts off my old car (which had been totaled). Those struts had been on that car since 1999.

I am going to adjust the hatch lock up a little so just for good measures. Since the last hatch explosion I disconnected the struts and have been running around mostly with the latch "poped". I also want to order a new hatch gasket. Mine is not that bad, but it is one of hte only solutions I can think of.