The contact owns a 2025 Toyota 4Runner. The contact stated that while driving 40 MPH with no other vehicles nearby, the sunroof glass shattered, with glass fragments falling inside the vehicle. The dealer was contacted and stated that the part was not under warranty. The failure mileage was approximately 18,759.
Toyota 4RUNNER sunroof shattered problems
34 of the 5,877 owner complaints about the Toyota 4RUNNER describe sunroof shattered, most of them for the 2016 model year.
- owner complaints
- 34
- worst model year
- 2016
- typical mileage
- 32,000
By model year
- 20253
- 20232
- 20222
- 20211
- 20203
- 20193
- 20183
- 20172
- 20165
- 20152
- 20143
- 20112
- 20101
- 20031
- 19991
Often reported together
What owners say
Traveling on highway with no other cars anywhere around. Going 80 mph on an 80 degree day when sun roof on 2025 Toyota 4 runner exploded. Sun roof was closed at the time, but could have had devastating consequences if it had been open. Toyota rep did not take a look at the broken glass to check for imperfections or manufacturing issues, just told us we needed to make an insurance claim.
Driving 70 mph on a cloudy 73° day around 6:30 pm no cars immediately around me on I45. I heard a loud gunshot to the point I ducked in my car. Immediately pulled over walked around the car. My Sunroof exploded upwards. Took to Longo Toyota on Monday at 7am. Upon arrival they thought it would be covered under warranty. They brought in a specialist to evaluate and they can’t prove it but something must have hit it and they are denying warranty. The glass moved upward and was shattered but intact upon initial inspection. Upon online review this is a known problem w Toyota but one that needs to be addressed in a bigger scale as this could have caused an accident just from the sound alone or if the sunroof cover had been open glass raining down on passengers and driver.
I was driving on the highway with no one around me. Temperature was around 60 degrees at 7:15am. My sunroof glass shattered as if it was a gunshot and the glass was pointed outward. It terrified my special needs child and myself and took a while for her to calm down. I drove it home later and opened up the sunroof to shattered glass everywhere. I have looked online and it is a known defect. I have a dash cam as well.
Started driving on the freeway when we heard something on the roof of the car and when I opened the moonroof cover from inside the car I could see that the entire moonroof had shattered. All the glass was flying off the car and onto the freeway.
I was driving down the highway when suddenly I heard a loud noise that resembled a gunshot, and shattered glass started flying all around the front of my vehicle. It turned out my sunroof had unexpectedly exploded. It was like the car was under pressure and it was relieved through the sunroof. I had my air conditioner on and my windows up. My sunroof cover was open and broke glass managed to be scattered everywhere. This resulted in glass fragments coming into contact with my face and arms, leading to a painful burning feeling on my skin. Luckily, a Toyota dealership was 2 miles away. I immediately drove to the dealership so my vehicle could be repaired. The replacement part was not available for my vehicle so I had to stay in a hotel until my vehicle could be repaired. This incident caused me a great deal of anxiety and I don’t know if I can trust this will not happened again.
I was driving down the road with no other cars in front or behind me and no impact was made on my sunroof when it just spontaneously exploded. The noise was so loud I jerked my wheel and almost crashed into a ditch. Large chunks of glass and tiny glass slivers were all over myself and my car and my ears were ringing.
While doing approximately 65 on clear, sunny, and dry conditions heading north bound on I-65 with no traffic my sunroof spontaneously exploded outwards with enough force to shake the whole cabin. Luckily my sunshade was closed so no shards entered the vehicle at that time. The remaining glass was convex, sticking outwards. The dealer’s service advisor told me he had 8 customers with this same issue in the last 2 weeks. Toyota needs to consider the frequency of these events and declare a manufacturing defect and / or issue a safety recall.
We were driving down the interstate, no other cars, trucks, etc anywhere near us, and the sunroof of our 2022 Toyota 4Runner spontaneously shattered. We were lucky that we had the shade closed on the sunroof when we experienced the gunshot like blast. We opened our sunroof shade and had glass fall down on us. We are so lucky that we had the shade closed and that there were no other cars near us, as this surely would have put lives at risk. We spoke to the Toyota dealership service manager where we bought the car the following day, which is about an hour from our house. He directed us to bring it in. When we arrived at the scheduled date/ timeframe, he informed us that it would take a day or so to do diagnostic tests- but he could not provide us with a car.(He knew that we were driving over an hour to bring it in.) We obviously could not get home without a car. They directed us to try going to a different dealer. We went to a Toyota dealer on the way home, 1/2 hour from our house. They did not want to deal with the car and said we need to take it back to the dealer we bought it from. He also stated that he'd never heard of this happening and that it must have been a rock, which is similar to what the first dealership said. I've read on-line now that our experience is not unique to us. We are confident that we did not have a chip or crack in our sunroof prior to this happening. This incident definitely puts people at risk.
The contact owns a 2014 Toyota 4Runner. The contact stated that while driving approximately 55 MPH, the sunroof exploded without impact. There were no injuries sustained. The local dealer was contacted but the vehicle was not diagnosed or repaired. The manufacturer was not contacted. The failure mileage was approximately 140,941.
Related recalls
Structure: body: hood
- What is wrong
- Southeast Toyota Distributors, LLC (SET) is recalling certain 2015-2018 Toyota 4Runner vehicles equipped with an accessory Billet Grille Overlay installed by SET or provided by SET and installed by SET dealers. The U-nut that secures the overlay grille may fracture, allowing the Billet Grille Overlay to detach from the vehicle.
- Risk
- If the Billet Grille Overlay detaches while driving, it can become a road hazard, increasing the risk of a crash.
- Remedy
- SET will notify owners, and dealers will replace the securing U-nuts with upgraded hardware, free of charge. The recall is expected to begin January 26, 2018. Owners may contact SET customer service at 1‑866‑405‑4226. SET's number for this recall is SET17C.
Recall number 17V763000 · Recall details
Questions about the Toyota 4RUNNER sunroof shattered
Which Toyota 4RUNNER years have sunroof shattered problems?
The model years with the most reports are 2016 (5 complaints), 2014 (3 complaints) and 2018 (3 complaints).
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