Sunroof failure or glass breakage on the 2014 Toyota Rav4
Only 5 reports for this mode came with an odometer reading, which is too few for percentiles to mean anything. The page is here because someone linked to it; treat the figures as anecdotes, and see the full report for this year instead.
When sunroof failure or glass breakage gets reported
There are 5 reports of sunroof failure or glass breakage on the 2014 Toyota Rav4, 5 with a mileage attached. That is too few to place the failure on the odometer with any confidence.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 78,000 miles. It is the 17th most-reported problem on this model year.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | — | 17,700 miles | — | — |
Read the 10th percentile as “one report in ten arrived this early”. Exact figures are shown in this table because it is the table of record; everywhere else on the site they are rounded to the precision the sample can carry.
What a percentile can and cannot tell you here
These five numbers describe the readings owners gave, in order. The median is the middle one: half the reports arrived below it. The 10th and 90th are the edges of the bulk of the distribution, and the distance between them is the part worth reading. A tight spread — say 70,000 to 95,000 miles — points at something that wears out on a schedule, and the schedule is knowable. A wide one, 20,000 to 190,000, points at a fault that hits some cars and never troubles others, which means the mileage on the listing in front of you tells you very little about your odds.
What these figures are not is a survival curve. Every reading here comes from a car whose owner filed a complaint, so the sample contains only failures: it cannot say what share of the fleet made it past 150,000 miles untouched, because those owners had nothing to report. Nor is the mileage the moment of failure — it is the odometer reading as recalled at the time of filing, which may be weeks later and is sometimes rounded to the nearest ten thousand by the person typing it.
Percentiles are shown at all only once 8 readings exist for the vehicle and mode. Below that the middle of a handful of numbers is noise wearing a decimal point, so the figures are withheld rather than dressed up.
What happens, and what it costs
Putting it right typically runs $700–$4,500 at an independent US shop. That range is an editorial estimate held in this site's failure-mode catalogue, not a figure from NHTSA, and it is a repair cost rather than a diagnosis cost.
The same failure on other years
The same failure is reported on 15 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2021, at a median of 2,200 miles, and latest on the 2024 at 160,000 miles.
By volume the 2019 carries the most reports, with 31; the 2014 has 5. A mode that appears across most years of a model is usually a design choice rather than a bad batch.
If one year stands out to the left, that is the year to avoid; if the whole line sits at a similar mileage, this is wear rather than a defect in one production run.
Tick median reported mileage Solid middle half of reports Faint 10th to 90th percentile Colour how bad the failure is when it happens
What owners wrote
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint narratives, trimmed for length. The mileage is the one the owner gave.
On may 2, 2015, at about 10:00 a.m. We were driving to the scranton, pa, area. We had just entered the on-ramp to I-81 north from rt. 309 when we heard a very loud bang and roaring sound similar to a door on a jet blowing off mid-air in a movie. There was nothing on the road to run over and the closest vehicle to us was a truck tractor at least 500 yards ahead of us and not driving on an angle that would send anything airborne to our area; nor were we near an underpassr. We put our flashers on and pulled over at the first safe area. Upon checking our vehicle, we discovered our sunroof glass had 'exploded' with an approximate 8-10 inch circular hole dead center and the rest of the glass fractured. We had the interior sunroof covering pulled closed when this occurred. The edges of the hole were bent slightly upward indicating an upward force. We didn't run over anything and nothing struck us, so we were fairly shocked. We checked our cell phones and discovered independence toyota, hazelton, pa, was about 5 minutes away at our next exit. We pulled in and both the sales people and service people examined the damage and were as…
While driving at 60mph, manufacturer installed sunroof exploded. Outside air temp was 88deg. Sounded like a gunshot, and caused me to swerve off road thinking my car had been hit. No other cars or people on roadway at the time of the incident. No overpasses or trees, either. No rocks or debris were found in the broken glass. Cover was closed, or I would have been covered in glass. Toyota has had complaints about this problem, and refuses to accept responsibility for this known defect.
We were driving down the interstate at about 65 MPH at around 9 am when we heard what sounded like a boom on top of our 2014 rav4. There were other vehicles on the road but there was nothing that we saw fly up off the road and immediately turned to see what might have flown off the back of the vehicle and saw nothing. We were able to exit the freeway and find a parking lot to see what happened to our vehicle. Our sunroof had a big hole in the middle and all the rest of the glass was cracked like a spider web. There was nothing found such as rock or other object in the glass that could have hit the vehicle and no other damage to the roof. Thankfully the cover was closed at the time. We did not have a choice but to break out all the remaining glass after contacting the toyota dealership/and insurance company, so as not to spray glass on the road or drivers on our 45 mile drive back home. Toyota dealership told us it would not be covered under our warranty and would have to be an insurance claim. We feel that this is a manufacturer defect.
Also reported on the 2014 Toyota Rav4
Other electrical problem
Other engine problem
Other body or interior problem
Torque converter failure
Other brake problem
Other steering problem
How far this goes
This page is kept out of search results because 5 reports is not enough to publish percentiles from. It stays reachable because somebody looking at this exact car would rather see the reports than be told there are none.
Complaints are voluntary, so 5 is a floor and not a count of affected cars. Mileages are typed in by owners and cluster on round numbers. And the mode itself is assigned by software reading the complaint text, which is reliable in bulk and fallible one report at a time.
Questions this page answers
At what mileage does sunroof failure or glass breakage happen on the 2014 Toyota Rav4?
Across 5 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 20,000 miles. A quarter were filed before — and a quarter after —. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is sunroof failure or glass breakage on the 2014 Toyota Rav4?
5 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.0 per 1,000 vehicles. Complaints are voluntary, so this is a floor rather than a count of affected cars.
What this is and is not. These are the mileages at which owners chose to complain to a federal agency, which is not the same as the mileage at which the part fails on every car. It skews toward failures that happened outside warranty, cost real money, or frightened someone. It is still the only public dataset that carries failure mileage at all, and the shape of a few hundred readings is informative even when a single one is not. Methodology · JSON · this failure on other cars
Source Owner complaints and recall records published by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, model years 1996–2027 Figures rebuilt Published by AtWhatMileage How every figure is computed