Very loud crack noise from windscreen?

Rob RCF · January 14, 2023

Wtf, has anyone else experienced this? Basically it was a shockingly loud clunk or crack sound coming from the the edge of the windscreen or roof, I thought something had hit my car. It happened twice today, both times were about 5 minutes after setting off from cold. First time was at a standstill at some traffic lights, second time was while driving around 20-30mph. I looked over the car but couldn't see any visible damage or anything.

PRT68 · January 14, 2023

Was sitting in my then BMW waiting for my wife, when I heard what I thought was a gun shot. A front spring had snapped.

RadicalCoupe-Fuji · January 14, 2023

I had a 20 year old Nissan S15 turbo, the rear screen always did that on a winter morning, mainly if there was a frost.

ubersonic · January 15, 2023

On 1/14/2023 at 10:38 PM, PRT68 said:

Was sitting in my then BMW waiting for my wife, when I heard what I thought was a gun shot. A front spring had snapped.

I heard similar from my Supra while driving down an unlit road at night, at first I thought I'd obliterated a rabbit or something that was sitting in the road. Nope, blown shock.

Soperman · January 17, 2023

I have experienced what I believe is the same issue, on numerous occasions, in my 2015 RCF.

A loud "crack "sound, exactly like a stone hitting the windscreen. Immediately followed by a loss of infotainment, and a brief error message on the Instrument Panel (the wording of which I forget now, but something about "excess voltage" I think.)

Presumably the sound comes from the speakers, as there's never damage to any glazing.

Whenever it happens, the infotainment quickly re-boots and all is well. For that reason I have yet to report it to my dealer.

Rob RCF · January 19, 2023

On 1/17/2023 at 11:41 AM, Soperman said:

I have experienced what I believe is the same issue, on numerous occasions, in my 2015 RCF.

A loud "crack "sound, exactly like a stone hitting the windscreen. Immediately followed by a loss of infotainment, and a brief error message on the Instrument Panel (the wording of which I forget now, but something about "excess voltage" I think.)

Presumably the sound comes from the speakers, as there's never damage to any glazing.

Whenever it happens, the infotainment quickly re-boots and all is well. For that reason I have yet to report it to my dealer.

I have heard about this as well while reading up about my issue. Apparently a problem with the Mark Levinson amplifier which shorts out and makes one of the speakers "crack" loudly. In my case I'm guessing the front right tweeter, although it was hard to tell exactly where it came from, possibly multiple speakers.

I didn't have music on both times, so I didn't experience the same thing with the audio going dead, but thanks for the tip. I will try to keep some music playing in case it happens again.

Apparently the ML amplifier can be problematic on these cars because of its placement, shoved into a tiny little space under the floor behind the rear wheel. Coincidentally that little panel was loose when I bought the car, so I wonder if it has had issues before.