2001 sable window troubleshooting
 

hi all. i drive a 2001 mercury sable ls and i'm having issues with the power windows. all the windows work from all the switches except for the driver side window. the driver side window decides to work whenever it wants to really. sometimes it will go down and not go back up. other times it will work for a while. either way i always leave the window up now because i don't want it to get stuck in the open position which it has a few times.

when the window does work it works smoothly. the window goes up and down at the correct speed and there is no sign of binding or sticking, so i believe my problem is electrical. it also doesn't sound like the motor is struggling. usually when you press the switch to make the window go down there is just a click heard from underneath the dash. i have the door panel taken off currently and don't see much evidence of bad wires, but i have only done a visual inspection. i have yet to take off the inner plastic/rubber panel though. i'm hoping it's simply just a bad switch, but what else could it possibly be? thanks for your time.

also, not an issue, but something i'm just curious about. under hard acceleration i hear a whooshing sound like my car is equipped with a supercharger, only i know it's not. what's up with that? lol.

-karl

I would suspect a bad switch. I would check for voltage going from the switch to the motor. If you have good voltage at the motor when the switch is operated, then it would be the motor. But since the motor sounds good when it operates, I would replace the switch first. There is a relay & a circuit breaker, but if they were bad, none of the windows would work. Also each motor has its own circuit breaker in the motor, but if it was bad, it would be the same as a bad motor.

Could also be the wiring in the driver's door jam. A broken wire would explain an intermittent condition.

ok, now who wants to tell me why the hell my drivers door won't latch? before anyone asks, no, i didn't screw with anything in the door other than the window switch when i had the panel off. i touched nothing around the latch area and don't see how i could have. i never slam my doors and i'm the only one who drives the car so i know the doors were never slammed. i got out of work, got in the car, shut the door like normal, drove down the street, took a right turn and the door went flying open and now it refuses to stay shut. so why the hell did my door just randomly fly open when i was making a turn? i'm damn glad i had my seat belt on i coulda been killed! this car is a death trap! oh yes, it hasn't been in an accident...afaik. at least it wasn't in an accident as long as i have owned it.

This could possibly explain the whooshing sound you were hearing. The sound could be a leak from your door seal. Are you sure you're door was latched before it flew open? There could be some corrosion or dirt in the latch that's keeping it in the open position. Try lubricating the latch. If that doesn't work, there may be something broken inside the door in the latch mechanism. Try pulling up on the exterior handle and then releasing it a few times to see if the mechanism will free up (also try this with the interior handle). This worked on my Explorer just the other day when it would'nt latch. It seems to be working now, but I know that eventually I will have to pull the door apart and fix it.:D