Faulty Window Motor/Regulator
Posted: Fri May 26, 2017 10:21 am
Hi All,
Long time reader, first time poster.
I've recently had an issue with the Window mechanism of the drivers side door.
Yesterday was the hottest day of the year by far in the UK (25/26 degrees). My (black) Scirocco was left parked all day in the heat. When I returned to the car it was absolutely boiling. Naturally, the first thing I did was to lower the windows all the way before driving home (15 minute journey). I'm not sure if any of this is relevant, but for completeness I am including it here!
I parked up, did the windows up and got out of the car. After closing my door, I realised the window was only about 80% of the way up. I opened the door and tried to do the window all of the way up. It did not budge. I wound the window down to about 20% and tried to do it up again. This time it stayed at about 40% up. Next, I wound the window down and (maybe stupidly) assisted pulling the window up whilst also using the switch to raise the window. The window did up to about 80% but wouldn't go all the way up. I wound the window all the way down, and the window would not do up again. It was now completely within the door.
When pushing the switch up, I could hear the motor fire and clunk, like it was moving something internally, but this lasted for about a second, and the glass did not visibly move. Further presses resulted in an electric noise from the motor but no movement. When pushing the switch down, again I hear something moving internally for a second, like returning whatever moved to its original position, and no further movement. I could repeat this action back and forth.
I took off the door card and the inner panel and found that the motor was roasting hot. I let it cool down a bit and tried the mechanism again. No dice. So I took the motor off to manually allow me to raise the window so at least the car was secure. The window went all the way up with little problem. I put the motor back on and locked the car.
I returned a few hours later as I was going to take the motor out to ensure that it fired fine when not connected to the window mechanism. Before I did, I thought I'd give it one last try. Lo and behold the thing worked like a charm. The window went all the way down, then all the way up without issue. I tried it a few times and all seemed to be good.
My question is - what could this be? I assume a fault with either the window motor or regulator, but both parts are obscenely expensive and I don't want to just replace them on a whim. Could this have been caused by the heat? It was hot for the UK but presumably these cars drive around hotter countries all the time, and this does not seem to be a common issue!
Replacing the motor seems easy enough, but replacing the regulator does not, but I don't want to be forking out on either if I'm not sure it's going to resolve the problem! I also don't want to just leave it only for this to happen again in a few days!
Any advice on this would be greatly appreciated!
Long time reader, first time poster.
I've recently had an issue with the Window mechanism of the drivers side door.
Yesterday was the hottest day of the year by far in the UK (25/26 degrees). My (black) Scirocco was left parked all day in the heat. When I returned to the car it was absolutely boiling. Naturally, the first thing I did was to lower the windows all the way before driving home (15 minute journey). I'm not sure if any of this is relevant, but for completeness I am including it here!
I parked up, did the windows up and got out of the car. After closing my door, I realised the window was only about 80% of the way up. I opened the door and tried to do the window all of the way up. It did not budge. I wound the window down to about 20% and tried to do it up again. This time it stayed at about 40% up. Next, I wound the window down and (maybe stupidly) assisted pulling the window up whilst also using the switch to raise the window. The window did up to about 80% but wouldn't go all the way up. I wound the window all the way down, and the window would not do up again. It was now completely within the door.
When pushing the switch up, I could hear the motor fire and clunk, like it was moving something internally, but this lasted for about a second, and the glass did not visibly move. Further presses resulted in an electric noise from the motor but no movement. When pushing the switch down, again I hear something moving internally for a second, like returning whatever moved to its original position, and no further movement. I could repeat this action back and forth.
I took off the door card and the inner panel and found that the motor was roasting hot. I let it cool down a bit and tried the mechanism again. No dice. So I took the motor off to manually allow me to raise the window so at least the car was secure. The window went all the way up with little problem. I put the motor back on and locked the car.
I returned a few hours later as I was going to take the motor out to ensure that it fired fine when not connected to the window mechanism. Before I did, I thought I'd give it one last try. Lo and behold the thing worked like a charm. The window went all the way down, then all the way up without issue. I tried it a few times and all seemed to be good.
My question is - what could this be? I assume a fault with either the window motor or regulator, but both parts are obscenely expensive and I don't want to just replace them on a whim. Could this have been caused by the heat? It was hot for the UK but presumably these cars drive around hotter countries all the time, and this does not seem to be a common issue!
Replacing the motor seems easy enough, but replacing the regulator does not, but I don't want to be forking out on either if I'm not sure it's going to resolve the problem! I also don't want to just leave it only for this to happen again in a few days!
Any advice on this would be greatly appreciated!
