I know im not going cuckoo, but my passenger side view mirror literally shattered/exploded on its own. I made sure i googled this issue/situation before posting it here. I know it happens, rarely, but it does.

I was driving in the city, this is in philadelphia, where many roads are one way and very narrow. You will often find many cars parked on the side, and therefore leaving you with not much space available to drive. I happened to be in one of these streets, barely driving at 20 mph (there was a light coming up ahead of me) plus 3 cars in front of me. When all of the sudden i heard a loud pop! and saw my passenger view mirror shattered into pieces.

At first i thought, oh shoot, i hit one of those cars parked on the side, so i rapidly pulled over and checked every car that was parked. None had any damage, not even to their side mirrors.

My cover did not have any damages, no dinks, no marks either. I am still here scratching my head going .... what happened? i wasn't on the highway where you can see things flying at high velocities from everywhere. I was in a rather calm street, where people were even walking on the sidewalks

I also, did not hear anything hitting my car or mirror. Unlike, when you hear a rock or small pebble hitting your front wildshield while driving on the highway. granted, it is a side view mirror but the way it shattered, and how it the braking sound was heard, i could have heard anything hitting it hard previous to the loud Pop.

when my mirror shattered, it folded towards the inside....meaning the impact must of have come the opposite direction. There are 2 explanation that i can think of: 1) something hit or i hit another's car side view mirror, but the problem with this explanation is that there wasnt any damage or dinks or even marks on the other cars, nor on the casing covering the mirrror of my car. 2) the explosion ( i cant think of another word less dramatic) came from behind the mirror.

Being the engineer i am.... thermal expansion therefore creating stress loads on the mirror
bad coating or resin used when the mirror was made...meaning not enough resin or too much...this is a 6 sigma problem
there are sensors along with current (electrical power) that gets connected to the mirror paired that with overheating....a possibilty or too much heating
the mirrors ( i figured this is a pneumatic mechanism) that actually allows y mirrors to adjust itself when i turn on my car...pair that with any current going haywire or a snapping of a component that happened internally and well....that can cause for a mirror to shattered from within.

i bought my car with 2000 miles only - i am the first owner ..as this car was used for show and tell. i barely had it for 9 months now....and i know i did not hit my baby. This is the 3rd jaguar i own....and i dont want to give in yet into the reliability of the car not being very good. So far 2/3 i have own have been trouble ! uh oh.

so had any one had this issue happening to them? a side view mirror shattering?

 

Yep, it could be a pedestrian or a bicyclist that's why you don't see any damage outside. The mirror most likely shattered hitting the side window and the whole housing bounced off during the impact. I'm not sure If you didn't see the mirror hanging that someone who hit it just pushed it back in, but there is no possible way it will break by itself to that extend. Check the glossy frame there are might be some signs of impact.

 

Hi EngshMan!

thanks for your response.

a pedestrian or byciclist..i wish ! cause believed me, i would have walk out of my car and beat them up ( just kidding) but i woul had at least had a serious coversation about the drinking problem ( another silly joke)..ok all jokes aside, .actually, my glass shattered while i was driving ... believe me, when i say this .. i wasnt going faster than 25 mph...i was lucky if i was even going 20mph at the time it happened.

The streets in philadelphia are very narrow, neither people or byciclist dare to walk on those street..there are some few brave byciclist that do. But i can guaranteeed you that there wasnt any byciclist at the time my glass shattered.

There were only 3 cars parked on the right side of the street, and believe me that as soon as i heard the popping sound, i pulled over. I checked the 3 cars that were parked on the stree...i thought " maybe i hit one of them". but none of the 3 cars had any damage to any of their mirrors. or scratches/bumps on their frames.

Also, i was in line with the car in front of me, meaning if i would had hit any of the cars parked, so would have had the car in front of me.

The point im trying to get to, is that things like this dont happen out of the blue. a glass shattered, oh absolutely possible, the reason behind it...now thats debatible. While, in the majorty of the cases, the damage is due to foreing objects hitting the galss to the actual driver hitting something. Nonetheless, there are other reasons besides those that i mentioened. Such as manufacturing and design errors....that are rarely brought up to the light because are hard to prove....well not to an engineer with all the given data

if anything it serves as data collection ! hahaha. i have seemed a few post out there that have had the same issue, just not enough data.

 

This is very interesting incident. The amount of electricity provided is very little, but there is still a chemical reaction in between two tempered glasses and technology is called electrochromic. Moreover, knowing the fact that so much weird stuff going on in automotive industry I believe you should be covered by warranty.

My side door glossy panel cracked under self pressure was replaced under warranty. Also, the Jags customer service is not the greatest they may not believe your story, but it wont hurt to try.