Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Troubleshooting Window Stuck (down, of course)

All right, before I get started here, I'd like to say that I don't have much experience working on cars - I'm just recently out on my own in the world and so the whole car repair business in a bit new to me.

So, my front, driver's side automatic window in my 1996 Contour is stuck in the down position. It was working just fine (besides a faint clicking sound) all day, until it just decided not to come up anymore. I guess I'll outline some things:

1) all other windows work fine from driver's control panel - (back window control don't work, it's been that way for a while - I'm assuming it's unrelated)

2) I can hear the relay click when I press on the button in the down direction, but no clicking when I press the up button - I'm assuming if it's clicking at all, it's all right and that the problem isn't the relay

3) I can't move the window at all. I have taken the door panel off and have gotten both hands on the bottom of the window and tried to pull it up, but it just won't budge.

4) This leads to a problem of replacing the motor. My Hanes manual says to remove the glass first, but since the window is stuck down, I can't get to those mounting bolts. Am I going to be able to even get that motor out to replace it?

Ok, well I think that's it. I haven't checked the fuse yet because the other windows are working (and, to be quite honest, I can't locate the main fuse box) Anyway, any help at all would be very much appreciated.

Thanks,
Cory

the window has a cable that lifts or drops the glass, motor pulls the cable. The crackle noise may have been cable binding up. you can't fix it. I had to replace window regulater about $135.00 dealer part.One side cost more than other. I would get a shop manual from parts store. not that hard to fix but not that easy.also glass is held in place by two plastic nuts. remove them from the regulater then pull out glass.

Before you do any replacing, try checking the plug that plugs into the window switch. Make sure all the electrical components haven't been bent. I had the same problem as you and spent $500 replacing motors, regulators, and a broken window for trying it myself. Then I found that the whole problem was just a bent contact. And that sucked balls.

I just fixed mine last night.
I took the inner door panel off, took a look at the relay, and no problems. I pulled off the connector(the larger one with 13 wires I think) off, and 2 of the contacts were corroded and spread apart. It looks like some water had gotten in there and started oxidizing on the contacts. If you're careful, you can pull out the red spacer in the connector to let you push the contacts trough to clean them, and I reassembled everything with silicon grease. Works perfect, but I'll have to wait for the first rain storm to see if it really fixes the problem.

Mark
96 MTX V6, 110K Miles, 2nd engine(spun conrod bearing)

First off, make sure that it is the motor (regulator) that is bad. Like others have said, check the connections, etc.

On my car, I had a similar situation: The window barely worked for about a year, but got worse and worse. It made a crunching sound whenever it went up and down.

I eventually took the door panel off and found that there were two problems. Both were with the cable that moves the window up and down:

The first problem was that the cable had eventually worn away a white tubular-shaped piece that is located where the cable enters/exits the top of the motor. The white piece surrounds the cable and protects the regulator from the cable rubbing against it. This piece had broken off. Once the piece broke off, the cable rubbed against the black plastic of the regulator and small shavings of plastic got stuck down in the motor.

The second problem was located near the top of the door. There is a small white plastic wheel (sort of like a pulley) that the cable goes around. It also had a small plastic tubular-shaped piece that had broken off and the cable was hopping off of the pulley every now and then.

My advice is to check everywhere the cable comes into contact with plastic. You might have a broken piece.

If you decide that you need to replace the motor/regulator. You can remove the glass by first cutting the cable that moves the window. By cutting the cable you will free the window to move as you desire. NOTE: Please make sure that the window is secured before you cut the cable, otherwise it might fall into the door frame and shatter.

You will probably want someone to help you with removing the window, since you will need to position the window in order to loosen the bolts through the door frame.

Also, you should make sure that you have the window regulator on hand before you start any of this. As someone said, it costs around $125. I got mine at http://www.fordpartsonline.com/