robbycolli

iTrader: (8)

i need to check on this

y_b_lamron

for those wondering if it's worth it I did mine well over a month ago and haven't had any more issues with my passenger side window. I definitely think it's worth the 30 minutes.

SponGer

iTrader: (1)

Okay, I put a new AZ motor in, but the window rolls ups very slowly. I didn't want to burn the motor out. Is the window off track?

SponGer

iTrader: (1)

^^Never mind. The key is to start with the bottom track bolts when attaching to the cover. BTW, got my motor from Auto Zone for $133. It wasn't in stock and only took them two days to get it. It is a remanufactured OEM part.

bender

iTrader: (3)

For those thinking about taking the door apart to clean the motor, don't waste your time. If you're going to take the time to take the door apart, replace the motor completely. I cleaned mine and it only worked a couple months before doing the same stuff again. Cleaning it does work though, just not for long.

LBkr

iTrader: (2)

Wohoo!! Success!

Did the whole thing today in around an hour on my passenger door. A few tips:

• I found illustrated pics (on another site's speaker repair tutorial) regarding how to remove the passenger door panel and handle without damage. (Very helpful.)

• I duct taped the window in the up position before starting. This helped ALOT.

• Once you have the door panel loose, it helps to have someone hold it while you unscrew the 4 black phillips screws holding the door handle in place and jiggle it loose through the opening.

• Once I unscrewed and removed the bad motor, I couldn't easily get the new motor to fit in place. So with everything still disassembled, I plugged in the new motor and my door switches, turned on the car, and used the window switch to spin the motor until it stopped in the EXACT same position as the old one I just removed. This allowed me to put the new motor in place with no problems.

• During reassembly it helps to do stuff in this order: First, reattach the motor to the aluminum panel, then coax the bottom rail bolts through the panel while putting it back in place, thread the 2 bottom nuts loosely on the bolts first, then do the top 2 rail bolts, then snug everything up. Finally reassemble the rest of the screws to remount the aluminum inner panel (but leave off the door panel until you test the window operation) in case you need to do the motor reset procedure. (I had to reset mine.)

Now everything works perfectly!! $503 w/labor at the dealer w/1yr warranty vs. $144 at Auto Zone (with my labor). FTW!!

Thanks to this thread (and Auto Zone for the lifetime warranty motor).

Integrity

iTrader: (28)

FYI to everyone. I've already had an Autozone motor fail on me. Lifetime warranty is great and all, just be ready to do the labor all over again in less then a year.

SponGer

iTrader: (1)

Sucks to hear that. Oh well, labor to do it repeatedly is not bad compared to paying for multiple motors.

Killermove

This thread has some great info! After reading most of the posts I decided to take stopped drivers side motor.

The pics int he thread made door removal a breeze, awesome work!

Got the motor out, cleaned out with rubbing alcohol and q-tips. Got it looking all nice, threw it back together (motor stuff), tested it - works!!

As I was putting the door assembly back together the window slid down. I didn't think much of it and went ahead and got everything together. Before putting the door panel on I tested the window. It started to go up, looks like it got stuck, then came all the way down again. After that it wouldn't respond. Upon further inspection it had come out of the track on the hinge side (I guess its the only track in this case).

Okay...so I did partial dis-assembly again until I could get the window back in the track, then reassembled a bit and test - nothing. Won't go up or down. No movement at all (and no sign of it trying).

After reviewing more stuff on this thread I decided to take it all down again, pull the motor, test the motor (it worked), pull the window up and put it all back together with the window up. That went fine.

Got everything but the door panel back on, double checked everything was back on properly, in the track, etc, etc. Gave the window a shot - came down a bit, then I told it to go up - it did that. It "bounced" off the top. I moved it up and down a little more - working just fine. I slowly inched it almost all the way up to finish the door re-installation when I decide I should try a "full down".

One click of the down button later the window was on its way...and never to return. It went all the way down just fine, now it won't respond at all again.

Now its just past 2:30am and I've got to stop for the night. Any suggestions? Why would the motor go down fine then not go up? Is it possibly too weak to pull the window at the very beginning/bottom? I bet if I took it apart again the motor would operate fine. After cleaning, it looked first rate - no signs of burn-out, wire problems or anything that might keep the motor from operating.

I hesitate to go out and buy a replacement motor as it doesn't seem to be the motor but whatever is controlling the motor. I'm at the end of my rope, any suggestions are greatly appreciated. Thanks!!

Ryan

LBkr

iTrader: (2)

Ryan-

You seem to have done many things well and followed many of the directions in this thread but you also seem to have missed a few things.

It's too late to remind you to duct tape your window in the up position before you start so it stays in the track during reassembly. This helped me A LOT!

Also, you haven't said anything about whether you were using the "Auto Up" or "Auto Down" position of your switch when testing your window. You may have noticed from many earlier posts in this thread, any time people talk about the operator not doing what they want (like when it "bounces" back down from the top) they are using the Auto Up function. Try manually holding the switch when testing.

The good news is that it sounds like your motor just needs to be reset. There are MANY references to the reset procedure in this thread. It's detailed with images at post #131 here:
https://my350z.com/forum/maintenance-and-repair/142013-window-motor-repair-replace-motor-brushes-7.html

Finally, when these motors go bad, they're very unreliable and hitting the door makes them work for a little while. Even after many people have cleaned out their motors, most fail again within a few weeks. I'm not convinced that your motor is really working. I could be wrong. No way to know for sure. But AZ has em for just $140 (after core charge) and those have a lifetime warranty! If working with it for a while and resetting doesn't work, you'll need to buck up and buy a motor (or get used to a nice breeze).

Good luck!

cwest350

iTrader: (25)

+1

been there did that. i cleaned mine and it worked for a bit only to go back to not working. bought a new motor on ebay.

Killermove

I did attempt to do a reset last night but it was late and my wife was in bed, since my door panel was dangling I couldn't actually close the door. So ended up one hand short to be able to hold the reset, hold the door button and hit hold the window up and down. I tried a couple times but couldn't hold the reset and the door switch well enough with one hand.

I did use the auto-down on for down it has not returned from.

On a related subject - my passenger side window sometimes "bounces" off the top and comes back to 2-3 inches open (anti-pinch kicking in) like some people had mentioned. In the past I've known cars with windows like these to have an adjustment for this to fine tune it so it doesn't "bounce". I can't find anything like that for the Z. Only thing I can find for the Z is taking the door off and using the reset switch. This seems a bit drastic. Did Nissan not leave us any other switch combo to get the motor to reset the close tension? The passenger side has never had any work done, window works great, just sometimes (seems weather dependent) it doesn't stay closed unless I hold the switch.

Thanks again, I'll let you know how the reset switch goes.

LBkr

iTrader: (2)

Even after my recent motor swap-out my passenger door did the bounce thing. It went away with a reset (but you do have to shut/fully latch the door).

As for taking the door apart to do the reset, yes you have to remove the door panel but fortunately you don't have to remove the inner aluminum panel. There's a black round sticker covering the reset button so you need to take that off to easily access the reset button. - It's a little bit of a pain in the butt, however, it's still cheaper than taking it to the dealership to have it reset. Reset is the magic repair for lots of these electric window misbehaviors.

Killermove

Has anybody tried doing the motor reset just holding in the door sensor button? I don't know for sure but don't think there are any extra sensors in the latch on the door that would know the difference between being closed and latched and just having the door ajar button depressed. Either way looks like I'll find out this evening! I let you know how it goes.

Sk8fe

iTrader: (5)

Killermove, can you explain what you are having difficulties with in performing the window motor reset procedure as documented by Nissan? Everything has to be assembled, the aluminum panel must be secured to the door. The door must be closed and you must perform the reset procedure from inside the car with the door closed (at least according to Nissan's instructions which only took me a minute or less literally and I had no problems). Care must be taken when closing the door so that the dangling window control button is not caught on anything. It is easier to do if you also disconnect the door latch from the plastic interior panel. This will allow you to completely close the door. In fact, I do not know how you could do it without completely removing the plastic door panel. The electronics in the window motor must be able to detect when the windows is all the way up (when door is closed) so it knows how far to take it and the same when powering down the window. The Nissan procedure made it clear to do this manually and not push the window button all the way to use the one-up or one-down (auto) feature. I think you have to completely remove the plastic interior door panel, I do not think that you can properly reset the window motor without doing this.

Killermove

Todays futile attempts:

Since the window is down and not responding I figured I'd give the window reset function a try just for fun. OF course it didn't do anything (the window didn't start in the up position, so this is no real surprise).

So I took it all apart again, taking care to not bump the motor at all. As soon as I slipped the motor from the regulator assembly I hit the window button - and the motor responds immediately. Motor works without hesitation every time its detatched from the regulator.

So I pulled the window up manually and reattached the motor, put the door back together and tried the motor reset. I followed the instructions exactly with the only exception being my wife held the door sensor button instead of the door actually being closed. I know this may affect the long-run performance as the "tension" may be set slightly incorrectly once the door is *actually* closed, but my problem is way before that.

After re-assembly and before doing the reset I play with the motor making small movements up and down - working great, no problems. I have the window go full-up (holding the button, not auto), then have my wife depress the door sensor, I press the reset switch then hold the window down button. Window goes full down, I release the window button, then the reset switch, and press the window up button. It heads up and stops after about 5 inches. After a brief pause it starts to head down again - so I release the window up and repress window up - that stops the window from going down.

Now the window won't respond at all again - no up, no down. I play with it for a bit, trying to manually pull the window up a bit to see if it may be stuck - it hardly moves but an inspection with a flash light shows its not stuck. Finally, it decides to go up and I send it all the way up. It gets to the top, stops, I release the button and I think "maybe this is progress".

And it is, but only in the sense that the window is now stuck in the UP position instead of the down position. No amount of messing with the controls seems to make any difference. I tried the "reset" procedure a couple more times, but the window never goes down so its not doing anything.

It seems the only thing left to do is replace the motor for the sake of replacing the motor. It seems perfectly fine when it responds. When it doesn't respond I have no way of knowing if the motor itself has decided not to respond or some motor controller. If somebody has an idea on how to troubleshoot whether this is a motor or motor controller issue that might help. otherwise I think I'll order a motor for lack of anything else to try.

What's with Nissan and crappy window regulators/motors?? My 93 Maxima had every regulator fail and one of the twice (and it was one of the most common Maxima problems).

Ryan

jangles79

I am having trouble loosening these bolts they are on so tight. I managed to get one off but stripped another. Any ideas or tips? I am using a standard wrench.

Killermove

Got my replacement window motor from AutoZone Friday and put it in yesterday. Worked like charm after doing the window regulator reset function (had my wife hold the door closed button so I didn't have to take off the door panel - worked great). I guess the old motor just couldn't handle it even after cleaning. Thanks for all the help!

Integrity

iTrader: (28)

Hit it with a spray called Aerokroil;



Let the spray soak in for 10 minutes, then try to loosen them. They'll come right out.

perrogrande007

iTrader: (4)

Holy crap, the window fix worked....thank you thank you thank you. I don't know how long it will work, but I don't care, my freaking window works after a year of malfunctioning.