Window problem, 2000 corolla

[Fayd]

I have a 2000 corolla with a window problem. 3 out of 4 windows (all but the driver's) will go down, but not back up. at least not for a period of time. they go one entire length of travel, then when reversed, they get 2 inches or so and slow down to stop. after waiting for a couple minutes or rest, the motor can be reengaged and they can be brought back up to the top.

i've taken the door panel off and tested to failure, to see if anything was getting hot. not that i can feel. the motor remains cool, the wiring into and out of the motors and switches remain cool. the switches seem to work fine.

the drivers side door has switches that can control all the other windows. behavior is the same regardless of whether it's the drivers door switch, or the individual window switch.

i don't know what to make of this. i don't believe it's the motors or the switches. it seems absurd to have them all fail at the same time.

any ideas?

Ancient thread closed.

Zenmervolt - AnandTech Moderator

 

[ThatsABigOne]

Did you replace the battery recently?

 

[Fayd]

Did you replace the battery recently?

maybe you should explain your line of reasoning? because that sounds like 'wholly unrelated, batman!'....

 

[Ferzerp]

Well, did you? Or have it disconnected for any reason?

 

[ThatsABigOne]

The reason why I am suggesting the battery because I know that my mother's Lexus rx330 had to get battery replaced. For a little while none of the windows worked. After restarting the car, the windows would only go down, not up. I played with the window switches, making sure that they get 'calibrated' and bam, windows worked afterwards.

 

[nedfunnell]

maybe you should explain your line of reasoning? because that sounds like 'wholly unrelated, batman!'....

Trust the man. Modern cars synchronize the windows- instead of dumb limit switches, they have some kind of fancy-pants circuitry that learns where the 'down' position is and same for 'up'. The memory for this is non-persistent through a battery change (loss of power), and the windows need to be resync'd after a loss of power. On most cars, you do this by rolling the window all the way down, but holding the switch down for 5 seconds still after it's all the way down. Then roll it up, again holding the switch up for 5 seconds after it's already seated. This 're-teaches' the positions. Rinse and repeat for each window. See if that works.

 

[LTC8K6]

http://www.toyotapart.com/POWER_WINDOW_ROOF_INITIALIZATION_PROCEDURES_T-EL009-04.pdf

There is an example.

 

[Fayd]

Trust the man. Modern cars synchronize the windows- instead of dumb limit switches, they have some kind of fancy-pants circuitry that learns where the 'down' position is and same for 'up'. The memory for this is non-persistent through a battery change (loss of power), and the windows need to be resync'd after a loss of power. On most cars, you do this by rolling the window all the way down, but holding the switch down for 5 seconds still after it's all the way down. Then roll it up, again holding the switch up for 5 seconds after it's already seated. This 're-teaches' the positions. Rinse and repeat for each window. See if that works.

my car windows work through a circuit breaker.

while the window travels down/up, the current is 7 amps. when it reaches the bottom/top, due to resistance (hitting the window frame) it goes up to 14.5 amps and then cuts out. that's intended behavior, and i'm reading this out of the repair manual.

edit: and this behavior didn't happen just recently. as i recall, the rear windows failed first, then the front passenger window. the drivers window still works fine.

 

[SparkyJJO]

Could be similar to what happened to my old car. Poor wiring design which doesn't give the motor full voltage. Over time the lack of voltage wears the motor and causes it to pull more power. Going up uses more power than going down obviously, so if the motors are on the edge, they'll trim the thermal breakers when going up. Not sure if the corolla is that way or not.

When you finally get them to go up all the way, do they barely make it to the top, gradually slowing down as they go up, or does it go up at normal speed?

 

[AMCRambler]

If its windows, try rebooting it.

 

[Fayd]

Could be similar to what happened to my old car. Poor wiring design which doesn't give the motor full voltage. Over time the lack of voltage wears the motor and causes it to pull more power. Going up uses more power than going down obviously, so if the motors are on the edge, they'll trim the thermal breakers when going up. Not sure if the corolla is that way or not.

When you finally get them to go up all the way, do they barely make it to the top, gradually slowing down as they go up, or does it go up at normal speed?

going up or down uses approximately the same power. the motor doesn't care, and it exhibits the same problems regardless of direction.

to put it dumbly, the window only has enough "juice" to do one full transit before stopping and resting for several minutes. after which, depending on how long i leave it, it can do another full transit in the opposite direction.

 

[LTC8K6]

Sounds like it doesn't know where to stop, so it keeps trying and kicks out the breaker, which resets after a few minutes.

That is, it sounds like it could be the calibration.

 

[JCH13]

I don't know anything about window calibrations, no car I've ever changed a battery in has done that.

It does sound like you're blowing the thermal protection breaker. 14A is a lot for those little guys, even if the outside isn't hot the armature will be cooking. The motors' magnets might be damaged from heating repeatedly, I see this quite frequently in window and door motors I've used in robots.

 

[SparkyJJO]

You could try taking the motors apart and cleaning them up, but I would probably just start replacing the motors with new ones.

 

[LTC8K6]

I don't know anything about window calibrations, no car I've ever changed a battery in has done that.

It does sound like you're blowing the thermal protection breaker. 14A is a lot for those little guys, even if the outside isn't hot the armature will be cooking. The motors' magnets might be damaged from heating repeatedly, I see this quite frequently in window and door motors I've used in robots.

It's very common with new cars that have computer controlled power windows.

Which should be most cars built in the last several years that use a network controller, which controls nearly everything electrical in the car.

The power window switch often does not directly control the window motor at all. It just sends a request over the network to the controller.

Many of the buttons that used to directly control things in cars, no longer work that way. All they do is send a request over a bus.

 

[JCH13]

It's very common with new cars that have computer controlled power windows.

Which should be most cars built in the last several years that use a network controller, which controls nearly everything electrical in the car.

The power window switch often does not directly control the window motor at all. It just sends a request over the network to the controller.

Many of the buttons that used to directly control things in cars, no longer work that way. All they do is send a request over a bus.

Oh, I believe it, I've just never used it. Good to know though!

 

[Fayd]

I don't know anything about window calibrations, no car I've ever changed a battery in has done that.

It does sound like you're blowing the thermal protection breaker. 14A is a lot for those little guys, even if the outside isn't hot the armature will be cooking. The motors' magnets might be damaged from heating repeatedly, I see this quite frequently in window and door motors I've used in robots.

uh... i'm not testing 14 amps. i don't have an induction ammeter.

i'm reading those specs out of the book.

my point is,

THE CAR DOES NOT USE CALIBRATION FOR STOPPING THE WINDOWS GOING UP/DOWN.

 

[exdeath]

There should be a control module in the driver side front door or near by (footwell, etc) that has all the control logic for the power windows, auto up/down, timer circuits, comparators, motor driver power MOSFETs, etc and the other 3 doors are just slave switches. Control module may have some problems. Sometimes it's called a GEM module, basically responsible for all lock, window, lighting, and keyless entry functions and such.

Apply manual +12 power directly to the actual window regulators and make sure they are working properly mechanically, then you know to start looking at electrical.

Behavior of 3 out of 4 sounds like a controller problem or harness connection problem where the slave switches/regulators connect to the driver side. Unlikely 3 windows all failed at the same time.

Instead of going full up or down then reverse, see if the problem also occurs if you just stay in the middle and go up and down a few inches both ways repeatedly, maybe verify it may be a heat/overload problem in that it has nothing to do with the position of the window but the active time the controller is working before failure.

 

[exdeath]

As for other posts with windows and learning positions and disconnecting the battery, if that were the case, why would the driver side window be immune while the others exhibited the behavior?

 

[Fayd]

Instead of going full up or down then reverse, see if the problem also occurs if you just stay in the middle and go up and down a few inches both ways repeatedly, maybe verify it may be a heat/overload problem in that it has nothing to do with the position of the window but the active time the controller is working before failure.

it is that. when i refer to a full transit, i'm referring mostly to the time it takes to travel. i can wear it down just going back and forth a few inches at a time, and after roughly 1.2 transits, it slows to a halt.

neither the motor nor any circuit *knows* the location of the window at any time. that's why it uses a circuit breaker design rather than calibrated positions.

 

[soccerballtux]

If its windows, try rebooting it.

windows always works after a reboot

 

[exdeath]

it is that. when i refer to a full transit, i'm referring mostly to the time it takes to travel. i can wear it down just going back and forth a few inches at a time, and after roughly 1.2 transits, it slows to a halt.

neither the motor nor any circuit *knows* the location of the window at any time. that's why it uses a circuit breaker design rather than calibrated positions.

It's the control module probably located somewhere in the driver side door or foot well. There are likely power MOSFETs in there that source the current to the window regulators and they are shutting down.

I'd apply manual +/- 12v to one of the windows locally straight to the motor and see if you have any problems just to confirm (consult with vendor diagram to confirm pinout and operation, usually it's just +12, G, -12, or just + and - and polarity to control direction).

The switches work obviously, and switches and wires don't produce the behavior of something working consistently every time, but dying out and recovering. Confirm that one of the windows works with manual power to rule out the miraculous possibility of three failing at once. All that's left is the control module.

 

[john_h]

it is that. when i refer to a full transit, i'm referring mostly to the time it takes to travel. i can wear it down just going back and forth a few inches at a time, and after roughly 1.2 transits, it slows to a halt.

neither the motor nor any circuit *knows* the location of the window at any time. that's why it uses a circuit breaker design rather than calibrated positions.

Did you ever find out what caused this?

I have a similar problem, three power windows in our newly acquired '02 corolla work fine all the time. However, the driver side will go down, and then just won't go back up all the way. We have to let it sit for some amount of time before the window will roll itself up again.


- John

This thread is more than a year and a half old. The better way to handle this would have been through a private message to the original poster or an entirely new thread with a link to this thread. When you post a new reply to a very old thread, most of the time your question gets missed and people respond to the original poster, not to you.

Zenmervolt - AnandTech Moderator

 

[tortillasoup]

My recommendations:
1. White Lithium Grease + q-tips... Grease the channels where the glass slides up and down upon, that should reduce the load on the window regulator and motor significantly, speeding up the window rolling up. When you grease the channels, move the window up and down several times to move around the grease it and lubricate it. You should see an immediate improvement.
2. Clean up your electrical grounds, especially the main electrical ground running from the battery negative terminal to the body. If you see the battery negative cable split off into several different mounting points, obviously clean up all of those grounds. When I say clean up the grounds, I mean take out the bolts and scrub all over the Bolts, eyelits and washers until they are shiny. So if a bolt has a built in washer, scrub on both sides of the washer till shiny, scrub the bolt threads, etc. etc.
3. Locate the grounds for the window regulator motor in the door panel and clean up those grounds as well. If those grounds are in the wiring harness only, then follow the harness to the dash and find the ground(s) for that wiring harness.

If you've done all of this, and it's still a problem, maybe you need to replace the motor, but I have to emphasize that I think it's highly likely the above so don't get lazy and replace the motor before doing the above thoroughly otherwise you'll have to end up doing it anyway later on.

 

[Jimzz]

Did you ever find out what caused this?

I have a similar problem, three power windows in our newly acquired '02 corolla work fine all the time. However, the driver side will go down, and then just won't go back up all the way. We have to let it sit for some amount of time before the window will roll itself up again.


- John

Buy a new window Motor and track assembly. Check www.rockauto.com and eBay as they don't cost that much anymore.