Hi guys,

I have a 2007 Mazda3. The driver side window has recently been giving me some issues and I was hoping someone could help me figure out what is going on. It is only the front driver window that has issues. The other windows always work all the time. The front driver windows, however, will only work sometimes. When it is in the mood to work, it works every time, but once it stops working, it probably won't move again for the rest of the day no matter how many times I push the button.

I have observed the following behavior on 4 separate days:

I get in the car at 7:45 AM. Turn the key to start the engine. I try the window and it does not work. I put the car in reverse. Try the window again and now it works!!! All the way on the drive to my job it works just fine. Come back out at lunch time and it won't work at all. Going home at 5:00 it won't work either.

So basically, my window only works on the drive in to my job!?!?!? It has happened exactly like this on 4 separate days. What could cause this?

It works perfectly every morning (I roll them up and down a dozen times just to be sure), so I don't think the motor is bad, nor do I think the switch is bad.

I thought it might be a loose wire, but I've tried slamming the door repeatedly and I can't make it stop working if it was previously working nor can I make it start working if it wasn't working before.

Any thoughts? I'm stumped. It seems like it stops working by lunch time because the switch over heats and then it requires a full 24 hour cool down followed by a gear change reset itself, but that would be crazy.

Any ideas are greatly appreciated.

--Rob

 

broken wire, or maybe a corroded connector. there's a connector at the front of the door for the harness, you can pull that & see if there's corrosion or soft spots on the wiring indicating the wires inside are broken.
It could also be the switch on the drivers door, try shutting that instead of the passenger one to induce the failure.
If it's a bad spot on the motor (burnt commutator) it could show up similarly - how often do you use the passenger window compared to the rest of them?

 

Thanks for the reply, djs2571.

I'd expect a broken wire, corroded connector, bad switch, or bad motor to result in the window never working. The crazy thing is that it works perfectly each and every morning and fails to work every single afternoon. I'm sure I use that one far more than the others, so if one window was going to fail, it would be this one, but how can it be that it works early in the day and not later?

 

If that window is used far more than the rears, and I assume the door may not be? then it's probably a bad spot on the motor. And no, slamming the door doesn't always fix that.
As for working in the morning but not the afternoon, i'd have to say it likes cooler weather, though it would then work all the time in the winter - definitely something odd.

You can pull the inside door panel on the passenger side, from there you can monitor the voltage at the window motor. Though remember to connect the switch after getting the panel off or the window won't get power. Like hook up a small light to it, or just use a meter and see if when it doesn't work, if power is getting to the motor connector. That will help narrow down where the problem is.

 

My driver side window does the same thing. I took it to Mazda last year to fix. They fixed it. It started acting up about 6 months ago. It is frustrating. The window has a mind of its own. I called them again today as I am fed up with it. It will be $100 for diagnostics then what ever it is to fix it. He said it was a screw that came out. What am I driving a Harley that the vibrations are making it loose and fall out? It hasn't been a year. They should fix it for free. How can I prove/watch them so that they don't tell me it is something else and make me pay for it when it is the screw again? What a rip off.