2007 Toyota FJ Cruiser: windshield cracks

Filed Mar 18, 2015 · Body · 80,000 miles · MD

While driving at 25 MPH, I hit a relatively small pothole on the road. Immediately as the vehicle went down on one side, the windshield cracked, about 4 inches from the middle bottom up. There had not previously been any damage to the windshield and nothing hit the windshield during this incident. The following day, the entire windshield cracked entirely, from the left to the right. After being inspected by the toyota dealer, the windshield has to be entirely replaced at owners cost. The vehicle has never been off road, nor was this an accident or a major incident. The vehicle has never been in an accident. Toyota knows of the problem that due to the way the vehicle was manufactured, there is potential for the windshield to crack. I also sent a report to toyota informing them of this problem.

Filed Mar 6, 2015 · Body, Visibility · 80,000 miles · MD

I was driving approximately at 30 miles per hour, in a residential street, when suddenly I heard a noise and noted that the windshield developed a five inch crack, starting from the bottom center going up. A few days later, the crack moved significantly, to the left and right of the windshield moving to cover the entire windshield. There was no prior damage to the windshield, the vehicle has never been in an accident and it has never been taken off road. The crack seems to have developed due to pressure stress- a defect from manufacturing. There are numerous other reports from other owners of this type of vehicle with similar reports, often times, even after having the windshield replaced. This is a safety concern and manufacturing error.

Filed Sep 18, 2014 · Visibility · CO

Due to the steep vertical angle of the windshield and the placement of the defroster vent several inches back from the windshield, the windshield cannot be kept clear by the defroster. The airstream from the defroster does not hit the lower 1/3 of the windshield and the left hand driver side and no amount of air even at maximum temperature will keep the windshield from icing over. The wiper blades become encrusted with ice and fail to keep the windshield cleared. In even a modest snowstorm, visibility quickly drops to nearly zero. My wife nearly wrecked the vehicle because of this issue. In addition, due to the large thermal gradient across the windshield caused by this issue, the windshield cracks in a horizontal line extending across nearly the entire windshield at the location of the defroster airstream contact. This phenomenon has happened 2 times! I have talked to my local toyota dealer several times and they are in complete denial about the issue and claim "everything is working as designed". This is a fatal problem as the vehicle cannot be driven in a snowstorm and I would not be the slightest bit surprised if there have been accidents because of it. Using fmea (failure mode effects analysis) I would rate the probability of this failure occurring to be a 1 (guaranteed to happen) and effects are catastrophic (loss of operability).

Filed Apr 27, 2010 · Visibility · 79,000 miles · CA

Road debris during normal commute highway driving has resulted in multiple horizontal and vertical cracks in the windshield. I have replaced the windshield twice and the windshield recently cracked again. My company owns six 2007 fj cruisers and four of the vehicles windows cracked within the first four months of operation. Previous to the fj cruiser, I commuted along the same route in another vehicle for four years and did not sustain damage to the windshield.

Filed Feb 15, 2010 · Visibility · 56,000 miles · RI

Toyota fj cruiser windshield cracks and chips easily. We've had our fj for two years and are on our 4th windshield. The smallest bit of debris creates a chip and sometimes it seems to begin to crack at the drivers side for no reason. Dealer offers no solution except to charge $500 a pop to replace the windshield. This seems to be a widespread problem as it is mentioned on numerous web blogs and forums. Incident date below is arbitrary as we've been driving with a cracked windshield for quite a while b/c we simply can't afford to replace yet another windshield at this time.

Filed Dec 29, 2009 · Visibility · 1,000 miles · NV

Windshield cracked from possible cold weather condition.

Filed May 30, 2009 · Visibility · 38,100 miles · UT

The windshield has been cracked multiple times by normal road debris.

Filed Jan 28, 2009 · Visibility · 49,875 miles · CT

A hairline fracture began growing from a central mid-point at the bottom edge of the windshield right before my eyes as I was driving. There was absolutely no road debris that hit my windshield that made this occur, nor have I ever taken the vehicle off-roading. From the central point the crack grew over the course of 10 seconds in both left and right directions until ending at the left and right sides of the windshield. I can't even begin to understand how this would happen. I belong to an fj cruiser enthusiast website fjcruiserforums.com and 33% of 2007 owners report having had/have a cracked windshield. Now that I am part of that growing percentage, I'm not happy that there is no technical bulletin by toyota about this. The federal safety agency, you need to get involved. Many owners also report the problem happening again soon after getting the windshield replaced. What has to happen to get a recall done here? A vehicle built for rugged off-roading should be able to not have a paper-thin windshield and not crack for any apparent reason when driving down the highway. This is not cosmetic damage this is a safety issue and needs to have a recall issue before some poor soul goes sailing through their windshield because it has a design flaw.

Filed Jun 29, 2008 · Visibility · 1,000 miles · TX

After just a few months with my new fj cruiser, I discovered a crack in the windshield. The crack started at the top edge of the glass, and has proceeded to traverse my windshield, and branch off into other cracks.

Filed Nov 2, 2007 · Visibility · 1,000 miles · CA

Tl*the contact owns a 2007 toyota fj cruiser. The contact stated that the windshield began cracking and spread until it covered the entire windshield. The dealer stated that the cracks were probably caused by road debris. The dealer refused to cover the repair cost because the vehicle was not covered under warranty. The contact had the windshield repaired and filed a complaint with the manufacturer. The current and failure mileages were 1,000.

Filed Oct 24, 2007 · Visibility · VA

Windshield continually cracks.

Filed Aug 1, 2007 · Visibility · 6,000 miles · TX

I have had the vehicle for 5 months and have already had 3 cracked windshields. When talking to other fj drivers, they complain about the same problem.