Hi all. I drive a 2005 Mazda 3i and for the past few months the front driver side window has been having problems.

At first the window would go down to a certain point (about half way) and then stop going down, but it would still go back up all the way. Then it started making a loud knocking sound as soon as the window finished closing up all the way. Now today the window stopped going up the way and still wont go down all the way, but it still works for about 3 inches of play room. I know this probably doesn't make any sense to anyone so I took a short video of what the window does. (sorry its night time and I really wanted to make a post so please bare with the darkness)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKuad-iPv2s

In the beginning I am simply trying to make the window go up and or down, and as you can see it stops going up at a certain point and also stops going down at a certain point. Near the end of the video I hold the button trying to make the window go up and you can here a sort of faint whine.

I just want to know if anyone else has had this problem and if so, is it a difficult DIY fix? Expensive? Do I need to buy an entirely new assembly?

Thanks for any help in advance.

 

I haven't seen the inside of the system on the 3, but a similar issue happened to my moms maxima. There's a pulley with a cable wrapped around it, and that cable is what pulls the window up & down. What happened is ice jammed the window, and the cable jumped over the next turn of the cable, so when it moved it was having to go over / under the next turn of the cable making a clicking noise and ultimately siezing up so it could only move a few inches.
If you can pull the door panel apart it should be an easy fix, there isn't a lot to go wrong as it's a fairly simple mechanical system.

Good luck