Driver left holding the bill for shattered sunroof of car under warranty | ABC11 Raleigh-Durham

wtvd

By ABC11

Monday, March 3, 2014

CARY, N.C.

Roderick Harrison was driving to work when the sunroof of his 2013 Hyundai Veloster sent glass raining down on him.

"I had it in my clothes, and thank God I didn't get it in my eyes," said Harrison. "I was headed to Durham on 147 to work and all of a sudden I heard this boom. I thought it was someone's tire and, the next thing I know, I just had glass falling over me.

Harrison said he immediately went to the Hyundai dealership since the car was still under warranty.

"No one even looked at it. As soon as I went in and talked to the service rep he basically said, 'Oh, it was a rock,'" said Harrison. "It couldn't have been a rock because I didn't hear it. I didn't see it -- because for it to be a rock, it would've had to hit pretty hard for me to feel it."

Harrison called the corporate office of Hyundai.

"I tried to explain to the Hyundai guy at corporate that no one really came and analyzed the car, investigated the car," said Harrison. "He just basically told me it was a rock."

Roderick was stuck with a more than $800 bill for a new sunroof.

"I didn't know anywhere to go but you," said Harrison. "Right now, I'm at a loss because they won't do anything."

Through research, we learned that Hyundai issued a recall on some of the 2012 Velosters -- stating the sunroof may shatter while the car is in motion because assembly may have been weakened during installation at the factory.

Harrison's car doesn't fall under the recall because it's a 2013, but we did find similar complaints with the sunroof shattering on safecar.gov website for the 2013 models.

I got in touch with Hyundai, and a rep told me the dealership thinks something struck the sunroof on Harrison's car. When I questioned if the dealership took a thorough look at his car, the rep said sunroofs shatter on all makes of car, but in the interest of goodwill, Hyundai has decided to reimburse Harrison $862, which was the total cost of replacing his sunroof.