Yesterday I went out to lunch. It was a nice spring day and my car is a convertible, so I put the top down and rolled down both windows while driving there. Got food, went back to the office. Got back to the office, put the top back up and went to roll up the windows. Except the passenger side window wouldn’t go up. Nothing happened when I used the switch on the driver’s door. I tried the switch on the passenger’s door, and nothing happened when I used that one, either. So I reluctantly left it parked with the window down for the rest of the work day.
At the end of the day, just for giggles, I tried rolling it up again, and to my surprise it worked just fine. And it’s worked fine ever since.
So what was going on? Why did it stop working that one time? Why did it start working again?
Intermittently failing motor. Possibly both switches, but that feels less likely. Since most modern cars have a computer between the switches and the window motors, that or its wiring could be involved.
We have a 2007 Nissan Altima that runs great now, but was laid up undriven for about two years before we started driving it. A battery replacement got 99% of the electrical system working fine – but for the first week or so, the power windows only worked intermittently.
Potentially of interest – often when the switch wouldn’t raise the window, someone grabbing and pulling UP on the window while the switch was engaged would do the trick.
Fast forward a year and a half. Very occasionally (less than once a month), one of the windows won’t respond to a switch. Often a second or third attempt will un-stick things. Rarely, I still have to employ the grab-and-pull trick.
Depending on how new / sophisticated a car it is, it could also be one of the safety sensors failing. If the sensor signals the computer that the window is obstructed, the computer will not run the window motor. If the sensor is lying, the window isn’t moving.
I don’t remember whether you ever told us in some other thread what age & brand of car you drive.
For our Ford there’s a routine to reset/retrain the power windows. Sometimes they get wonky and it’s a pretty simple process to get them back on track.
Check the battery connections… loose or corroded connections are first thing to check, then fuses, switch contacts ( if you can get them apart to clean them) or the connection to the switch itself. Age and vibration can cause things to loosen over time. Check the stuff easier to get to before you go taking door trim panels off to look at the motor and regulator mechanism.
In a modern car it is all going to be on a CAN bus with local controllers for every device. Switch sends message to car’s body control computer, computer sends commands to window drive controller.
I would bet on an intermittent issue in the window’s drive system. Window systems are a bit odd. They get trained by running the window full down to full up - which then enables the automatic roll to fully up without needing to hold the switch function. If you drop power to the car (usually happens for some car services or battery is replaced) the system needs resetting. But this should not affect all function.
If the day was hotter than just a nice spring day and the door that failed was facing the sun one might guess it was temperature related. Still could be. That could bring about a temporary over temperature indication that caused the controller to refuse to run the motor. Or an intermittent connection that is heat related. Modern cars have remarkably robust mechanical electrical components. Flakey connections are very rare. Electronic components are rated to much higher temperatures than consumer electronics. A motor controller may however refuse to run if it thinks the system is too hot
One question that probably can’t be answered now is whether the motor tried to run at all. If it was totally dead, versus a tiny jolt and then stopped, would narrow the location of the fault. If it ran at all it may have been an over current event that stopped it. That could have a mechanical cause or if the system was very hot already just over eager protection kicking in.
Cars are a remarkably interconnected mess of possible faults. Once you find it, it all makes sense. The journey to that knowledge is often far from straightforward.
I still miss my Mazda MX-5. I had an original NA model. Drove it from new until it was just totally worn out. Thought about buying another recently, but the sensible choice of an EV won out. But maybe next time.
My 1965 Pontiac Bonneville’s power windows did this occasionally. It seems unlikely that there’d be a whole lot of overlap in the components involved in a car of that vintage and a car from the modern era, but one possibility is a failsafe in the motor itself, that if it senses itself to be overheating it switches itself offline until it cools off.
Could it be water? I had a car with all kinds of electrical issues right after a rain storm, and then it gradually cleared up, until the next time it rained. Boy, was I glad to trade that one in.
Honestly, there are so many things that can cause this type of failure, it’s pointless to speculate.
But, in my experience, window issues are usually either mechanical in nature (broken regulator or grease dried up). or water damage in a connector. In a modern car, the possibility of it being a communication problem increases dramatically.
But I guess it’s good for illustrating the fork in the troubleshooting road that is electrical vs mechanical. If OP’s window moves well when it does move, it sounds more like a switch or sensor or cable.
Once a computer gets involved, it’s all so complicated that there are no user-serviceable parts inside. So any discussion of what’s likely to be the problem is far more likely to be misleading than helpful.
The old days of shade tree mechanics able to usefully apply experience gained from one brand or model year to another is just gone.
Somebody with model-specific training needs to plug the shop computer into the car computer, download the history of the window controller, and see what they find. Then apply some experience to whether the recorded errors are likely to be a malfunctioning sensor, or wiring to the sensor, or an actual failing mechanical component.
The rest, including my contribution upthread, is just Dunning Kreuger in action.
I had a 2002 Audo A3. The interior was like a Christmas tree, all the buttons lit up with red LED’s. About 2 years later, the driver’s door started randomly flashing and functions like lock and windows on the door were randomly inoperative. It turns out the harsh Canadian winter had cracked the thick cable that went to the door. (You could see it when you open the door) The damage was not visible, but the connections were obviously intermittent.
(Another fun fact about seasonal awareness - the wheel wells were lined with a flock finish rather than smooth, so snow built up and packed into the wheel wells solidly, then with our fine flat Canadian roads, you hit a bump or pothole and it broke the wheel well lining.)
The Miata is not a practical car, it’s a fun-to-drive little convertible. You can’t take the family in it, you can’t take the dog to the park with your SO in it. You’re not getting anything of size from the hardware store in it. It’s just a zippy little fun-to-drive with the wind in your hair & the sun beating down on you time.
Telsa made a Roadster from 2009-2011ish range. The car cost in the 6-figures when new, & I guess due to it’s rarity can cost more than that now for a used one. Also, it was a targa top, not a true convertible. IOW, there has never been a convertible EV sold in the US. That’s an apples to oranges spaghetti comparison to say you replaced it with a sensible EV because there is no option available to replace what it is with an EV.