Side/rear Glass problems of the 2006 Honda Ridgeline

While driving the vehicle through a drive through christmas light display area, the rear sliding glass shattered while partially open. No evidence of impact was found inside or outside the vehicle. Fortunately the children were not in the vehicle rear seat at that point in time. Searching the internet, I found a forum that have several other people has had this happen to them as well.

My wife and I work together at an engineering firm. She drives our 2006 Ridgeline. Our office is a small with its own parking lot. While sitting in the parking lot, the center rear glass panel exploded sending pieces of glass into the cab and into the bed of the truck. Nobody touched the truck and nothing hit it. My wife parks directly in front of her office window and has plain view of the truck. She was outside an hour earlier and it was fine. When she went outside again, the whole panel was shattered and the top right corner had fallen off. First thought was that something had hit it. I searched the bed and cab for anything as small as a bb. Found nothing. I studied the glass and looked at how it had fractured. Looking at the glass (from in the cab) the fractures all traced to a point just below the plastic trim on the right side of the window. I took out the back seats and back panels. There's a slide mechanism that opens and closes the window using a rail, a slider set in the rail, and a cable. I looked to see what was the first thing the glass hits when it's closed. I noticed a pressure switch near the bottom right corner of the window. This switch has a little square pin that sticks out. When the window closes, it pushes the pin in. This turns off the indicator that lets you know that back window is open. The pin is the first thing the window hits. It's small, hard and plastic. I pushed against it and it takes a some force to push it in. After the window starts pushing in the pin,it comes to rest on a stopper in the bottom right corner and a vertical one that runs the height of the window along the right edge. The pin is spring loaded and is constantly pushing against the window. Since all the fracture lines pointed to this pin, this is probably where the fracture originated from. Once the window reached a failure point, possibly due to repeatedly hitting the pin, the pressure of the spring loaded pin against the window supplied the force that caused it to shatter.

While riding down the highway the back window that opens and closes shattered all over two people in the truck. I thought all the glass in the vehicle was suppose to be safety glass. There was no reason behind the glass shattering, it just exploded. Other windows in the vehicle were also down.