Dammit! The power windows on my car just stopped working!

[BreweryYardRat]

Good news: I had the back windows rolled up all the way and the front ones partially.

Bad news: It's the rainy season here in Florida, and I have no manual backup for the windows.

With luck it's just a blown fuse and not a major electrical problem...but is a blown fuse something I can easily fix myself, or should I let a mechanic do it?

[LeftyMom]

1. Pop old fuse out, and new fuse in. It's easier than changing a lightbulb.

At least it has been in any car I've ever had to do it in. :shrug:

[BreweryYardRat]

3. Thanks. Unstereotypically for a guy, I'm not too good with cars.

[LeftyMom]

5. I spent my lunch hour at Napa Auto Parts today, along with a female coworker.

I think the staff thought we were an item, because surely pretty young straight chicks can't fix their own cars! The horror! :scared:

[BreweryYardRat]

6. Eesh. Dumbasses.

What'd you need fixed?

[LeftyMom]

7. I only needed plugs, oil and headlamps.

She needed a starter and a coolant replacement kit for her new-to-her truck.

[Oeditpus Rex]

11. She change her own starter?

You gap the plugs before you put 'em in? :D

[LeftyMom]

12. yep for her

I haven't touched anything I bought yet, 'cause it's all waiting for a little bit of free time without the kid underfoot, but I will.

[Oeditpus Rex]

13. Is she cute?

:7

[LeftyMom]

14. Check your PM in a sec.

:hi:

[Oeditpus Rex]

2. Fuses are never the problem

A fuse is a circuit breaker. When one blows, something's wrong that caused it to blow. They do wear out, but it takes a long, long time.

If you replace the fuse and that "fixes" it, chances are good the new fuse will blow pretty soon, too, because you haven't fixed what caused the first one to blow.

[BreweryYardRat]

4. Define "long."

This car's 20 years old, and (I think) hasn't had a problem even remotely like this for at least 7 or 8 years.

[BrotherBuzz]

8. Could be five or fifty years. Fuses, like lightbulb elements, do eventually burn out

If the replacement fuse burns out quickly, you have an electrical short somewhere, and finding that takes some thinking and sleuthing, but it can be corrected or isolated.

[Oeditpus Rex]

10. What Brudda Buzz said

My truck's almost 43 years old and it has fuses I've never replaced. (I've had it for 26 years.)

Anecdote: About 20 years ago, it kept blowing the taillight fuse every time I stepped on the brake. After I changed the fuse three or four times, I finally took it to a shop — one of the best in town, if not the best, which was a good thing because they found the problem pretty quickly: The truck was set up to tow a boat trailer before I bought it, and a bit of insulation on the harness for the trailer lights had rubbed off against a bumper support bracket. So every time I stepped on the brake, the trailer brake-light wire shorted and blew the fuse. I never would've found that on my own unless by blind luck.

[jobycom]

28. Not necessarily.

If the problem is recurring, yeah, there's an issue somewhere else. But fuses can and do blow for no good reason at all. Well, not no reason--obviously there's always a reason. But it may be a problem with the fuse, or with the fuse being loose, or with something you never discover.

Change the fuse, keep a spare. If it doesn't blow again shortly, it's nothing. If it does, install the new fuse, roll the windows up, and take it to someone who can trace down the short.

Then there are the weird ones. I have an older car that blows the blower fuse. It will blow for no apparent reason, and for a few weeks it will blow every fuse I put in, usually once every couple of days. Then it will start working, and not cause problems for a year or more, then it will start the same cycle over again. Weirdest damn thing. I think it's in the switch, but fuses are cheaper than switches.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

9. Here's a tip, if it's the motor...

A friend of mine bought a new motor kit for something like $60, and had it installed at an auto glass place. The labor was minimal, and cost much less than what his garage would have charged, which was something like $400.

[Gold Metal Flake]

15. What Oeditpus Rex sez about fuses is true. However, there may be another part involved.

Many power window systems use a relay to power the circuit. There may be a fuse for the coil of the relay, but the relay would be fed by a larger wire connected to the battery or starter solenoid and would have an inline fuse link.

Sometimes these power window relays go bad. Could be as simple as a solder joint inside the relay, could be dirty contacts or could be a bad coil winding.

It's hard to know what is what without a schematic of the car.

What kind of car (in case someone has a repair manual)?

[BreweryYardRat]

16. Volvo '89 240 DW station wagon.

[Gold Metal Flake]

18. I have a lot of manuals. Sadly.....

Oh well. Maybe someone has one.

Are all of the windows affected or just one?

[Oeditpus Rex]

17. And it could just be that the belt's bad

In my experience (which is admittedly brief with power windows), that's the usual cause. It could probably be determined just by listening and feeling while working the switch.

If that's it, it's a relatively simple fix — except for that bit about getting in there to change it. x(

[Gold Metal Flake]

19. Depends if it's one or all.

I asked the Q, lets watch for the answer.

By belt, you mean the geared belt used in European cars to actuate the window? That is what is used in my Rabbits. Before those little bastids, all I was familiar with wee the bigass US geared mechanisms. Also, Fords have a typical failure mode where these little rubber bushings inside the motor gear case deteriorate. Fix is easy with dowels or 1/4-20 nuts, and the fix is permanent, but getting the motor out is the bitch we are both familiar with.

Edit: Night all.

[BreweryYardRat]

20. It's all the windows.

None of them will work, even when I hit their individual switches, as opposed to the master switches on the driver's window.

[Oeditpus Rex]

21. So it's obviously electrical

And leads me to think OR was right — you've got a bad relay somewhere, since it isn't just one window. I dunno where they put power-window relays; it could be in a fairly easy place.

[Dr_Funkenstein]

24. Try This

There's a rubber accordian boot between your door, and the car itself...this is how the wires pas from the main body to the door. Pop that boot loose, and check your wires. This exact thing happened to me on Saturday, and it turned out to be a busted wire. Easy fix!

[Gold Metal Flake]

25. Yeah, it sounds like a problem with the system power.

The relay will most likely be under the hood. If your car has a central box under the hood where the relays live, I would look there. These relay boxes have legends that describe the function of the various relays. I've seen such relay and fuse boxes under the hoods of various cars (not the Fords that I drive, but under various European cars that I have looked at. Whaen a hood goes up in my neighborhood, I'm there).

Dr_Funkenstein mentions broken wires. Another possibility, but I suggest checking the voltage supply first before trying to trace it back to the central driver's control. Good luck!

[Gold Metal Flake]

26. Look at this thread...

http://forums.turbobricks.com/archive/index.php/t-50009.html

It's for a '93, but may still be helpful.

[tkmorris]

22. I would look to the relay

After I checked the fuse that is. I THINK the relays should be right next to the glove box, but I'm not certain of that. Many times you will find that you have many relays for other electrical devices in the same box exactly like the one you suspect is bad. If so you should be able to swap one of the known good relays in for the power window one, then check to see if they work. If they do, just go buy a new relay and you're done.

It definitely isn't a motor etc because each window has it's own motor. They didn't all go bad simultaneously obviously, so you're looking for something in the electrical system that sends power to the motors. Not much there except the fuse and the relay.

Good luck.

[electron_blue]

23. I thought the same thing last fall, when it was cold as heck. Are you sure it's really broken?

In my case - I had just accidentally pressed the x-button that prevents the windows from being rolled up. Once I pressed it again, the windows worked fine. Took me a few days to figure that out - luckily I didn't have to pay a mechanic to do that for me.

[Gold Metal Flake]

27. Any luck?

Don't leave the gearheads hangin'!