Hi I own a 4 door mk3 golf gti 8v and boy are the windows giving me some grief, My side the front drivers door works fine, the front passenger door however seems to work when it decides too, the window will go down and up occasionally but most of the time it will go down and wont come back up unless i turn off the ignition and turn back on again, The rear window on the drivers side works fine! on the dash switch and the door switch, but the rear door on the near side completely dead nothing off the dash switch or the door switch I am very novice at car electrics but a quick learner none the less any sugestions on how to cure my problem would be much appreciated cheers...
basic diagnosis of elec. window system Hi, lenny Many of us with mk.3's have had grief with the factory fitment elec. windows. With the o.e. system, there's a useful check that shows which motors will work. Assuming the car still has external key locks in the door handles*, use the key to unlock the car and then hold the key over. The windows should open. Holding the key after locking the car should close them, and the f/fit sunroof if fitted. A motor which responds to this, but not to the switches, has switching problems. One which fails this too is likely to have no power supply, a poor or broken earth or a worn-out motor (even if a motor doesn't move, listen for its relay clicking). Watch out for cases where the motor works, but the winding cable has broken or the glass supports have come loose. The wiring arrangments are more complex than in earlier models. Each window motor has a pcb attached, which controls the motor using a relay. The switches have seperate inputs to the pcb, and two 12v supplies are needed to get the windows operating from the switches. The wiring is prone to broken wires at the point nearest the body pillar, inside the rubber trunking which is visible with the door open. Lift the trunking off and check closely for broken wires. Not all the wires in the bundle are for windows, but the thick Red-yellow main power and Brown earth wires seem to suffer most, perhaps because they're less flexible. When looking for wiring diagrams, I can't recommend the one in haynes. It's only in the final edition anyway, and even though I installed the whole system in my own car, I can't follow h's drawing easily. The competing 'porter' brand has the vw-type drawings. * Rear door handles, with no key holes, are often fitted for security, and the connections that do this are broken.
Reply for Dougie Hi Dougie Cheers mate first of all for your useful advice, I tried the trick with holding the key over after i unlock the car and low and behold all 3 of the windows apart from from the rear passenger door went down and came back, up this led me to investigate further! so off came the rubber bung between the pillar and the door i wiggled the wires and there was a loudish kinda of bang from inside the door as if something is loose, then after trying the rest of the other switches ( for how they should feel with a nice clicky noise ) my rear passenger door is like a spongey feel to it not "clicky". Being the driver of the car i'm not very often sat in the back only if i'm cleaning but time has come to sort it out, so come the weekend the door card will come off and ill let you know how it goes thanks once again for the advice. lennyboy....
i had the same problem for ages on mine, stripped the lot down, Couldnt find nothing wrong with the reg or anything, i used to build doors for a living so gave them a real good looking over. Ended up being the wiring, if you pull the hose off between the body and the door, have a good look at the wiring, loads of mine had plit, seems that with all the years pf opening and closing the doors, possibly through the colder months of the year, it has destroyed the wires, i quite simply got some choc blocks and some more wire and fixed it all up together, giving some more slack to the area for when the doors are opening and closing, good as gold now, never fail me!!! Give it a go and let me know.
electric window problem follow up! Hi Dougie & Timah 89 As you can see in my post above i reported i heard a loudish kinda banging coming from inside the door when i wiggled the wires between the door post and the rear door. On the weekend after work I set to work taking the door apart, first i took off the rear door card then peeled back all of the insulating foam very carefully and was totally in shock at what i found. When i bought the car i asked the previous owner if he knew what was up with the window? he assured me it was a simple wiring problem hence me joining up with gticlub asking you great people your advice which you kindly gave, in a kinda of way it was a simple wiring problem, being there was no motor or window mechanism in door what so ever. So what did i find holding the window up i hear you ask ? A bloody length of 2x2 treated timber stuffed in the door an screwed in to place where the fixing screws for the window mechanism should be. The loudish kinda banging i heard when wiggling the wires was the scart plug electric socket dangling down hitting the door that should connect to the window mechanism motor. ( i will not type out what i now think of the previous owner for respect of other forum viewers ). Next step, i called up my local VW,AUDI breakers an asked if they did trade ins, my answer was NO! with plenty of laughing in the background, they did have a window motor and pulley set up for the rear door which i purchased for 50, so out came the 2x2 with a good beating and in went my nice replacement window part If you ever need to put a replacement one of these in, i found with the contour of the door connect the pulley system to electrics first before putting it in the door then use the switch on the dash to put the window in down position, then slide the whole lot in locate the screw holes tighten the 3bolts up then tighten the window securing bolts, before putting the foam and card back on i plugged the switch in which worked fine,disconnected it again put it all back together then repeated the key in lock test all four window went down and back up fine 5 or 6 times problem sorted....nice one cheers lads....
Hi, lenny "It's just a wiring problem, that window.." as in lacking winding gear, motor & pcb. Shows that some private sellers will say anything. At least the wiring wasn't cut. I remember a feller on gsf saying he was going to do that on both rear windows, but it was on a passat wagon. Is the switching on the pass. side front alright now?.
reply to dougie Hi Dougie, Yea the switching on the front passenger side seems to working ok for the moment, touch wood "excuse the pun", it will probaly play up when my missus is sat in the seat, that's when it normally would occur, i dont really have the side window down, only my side a bit until the warmer weather comes "know what i mean", talking about warmer stuff, my heater in the car works fine on all numbers,the blower that is, but it takes an absolute age to heat up any ideas or could this be a common prob for mk3 golf gti's, same as before Dougie, any info would be be a great help, all the best lennyboy.....
Hi, The heater not getting warm could be caused by the coolant not warming due to an open thermostat, or a failing heater matrix. The matrix of the mk.3 is regarded as much better than the similar one in the mk.2, and doesn't need the notorious by-pass valve fitted between the supply and return hoses. If the engine warms up alright, try flushing the matrix.
