2022 Volvo XC40

My car was sitting inside my garage, and just formed a crack, with no external disturbance. There is absolutely no way this was caused by external damage. You will see in the pictures that there is no external damage, and you can mainly see the crack looking up from inside the car. If you look at pictures of the glass, you see that the crack is on the underside of the glass, and that there is no single point of impact (like a radial crack, or chip, or anything on the outside surface). The Volvo dealership I took my car to said that even if it is a defect or an installation issue, that Volvo would do everything in their power to deny my claim. The dealer said they will document that that this was caused by external damage like a rock hitting the roof, even though I told them several times that the car was not being driven and was sitting inside my garage for months. I asked the dealer if they could show me exactly where the damage was, if they could point out to me where he initial outside impact or chip was. The dealership could not specifically point out where the chip was. I have contacted Volvo customer service and filed ethical complaints. They have more or less admitted to denying warranty claims on false evidence. It is also clear that the dealer gets paid more if it is not done through warranty, so they have no incentive to tell the truth (that this was a manufacturing/installation defect) I have done plenty of online research and found that many many other Volvo xc40 owners have the same defect in cars between 2020-2022 (their roof glass forms a horizontal crack completely unprovoked.) [XXX] INFORMATION REDACTED PURSUANT TO THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. 552(B)(6)

Resubmitting as not sure if last submission was received... We recently noticed a strange crack developing in the front panel of the sunroof of the car. The cracks are very linear in nature, and there is no signs of a impact point and no "spiderwebbing" type cracks apparent. When I researched online, I was surprised to see a large number of other Volvo XC40 Owners that had the same issue, with the same type of hairline cracking in the same location on the same sunroof panel (see "https://www.xc40forum.com/threads/crack-in-panoramic-sunroof.2403/page-3" for examples). In each instance, no other damage or evidence of a strike is reported on the vehicle to any surface or glass. All respondants say that Volvo asks you to bring the car in and then quickly states they believe it is caused by a rock strike, not a manufacturer problem. I personally tried to help the service tech I spoke with understand the improbability of that claim, (i.e. that the cause was something dropping straight down from the sky to that it could hit impact the direct top of the vehicle with enough speed to crack the glass, but slow enough to not ever create any spider webbing in the same general area of the same panel of glass on multiple like vehicles of the same model without leaving any trace on any other surface in multiple geographies). I believe the issue to either be something structural causing a stress fracturing, or subpar glass used in the panel (since other panels on this car and other cars are not experiencing the issue). My concern and reason for reporting is that it appears the issue is growing in incidents reported, and if this panel breaks while someone is driving the results to themselves and others on the road could be a huge safety concern.

A series of large cracks have formed on the sunroof panel of the car. The cracks are on the top of the vehicle, and there have been no occassions of rocks or debris hitting the vehicle (which would have been noticed as it would've needed to be a direct hit straight from the sky). I live in San Diego and the car us usually garaged, so there have been no weather incidents to consider either. Plus, the cracks appear to be stress fractures as there is no spider-webbing type breaks which you would expect to see with strike. This same breaking has been noted by various other owners of this car on a forum (https://www.xc40forum.com/threads/crack-in-panoramic-sunroof.2403/page-3) including pictures of the breaks. In each case, it is the same glass panel directly on the top of the vehicle, the same side to side cracking near the front of the panel, and always Volvo says "it must be a rock strike". (Local Volvo service center said the same to me on 3/7/23). However, it seems very unlikely that everyone would be experiencing the same stress type cracking (not spider-webbing) near the same part of the panel, on the same panel, on the same type of car - AND that all were hit by a top down direct rock strike to that part of the vehicle without ANY other damage to any other part of the roof or hood. From the forum it looks like this has been reported by others to the NHTSA. My concern is that this panel will continue to crack until it potentially shatters glass on the occupants of the car, potentially while in motion which could present a risk to the occupants as well as others on the road. This should be addressed by Volvo at their expense, and given the consistency and growing number of reports should be addressed quickly before something much more dangerous occurs.