&$%^#)&* Power Windows

snipped-for-privacy@io.com (Jeff Walther) wrote in news:trag-2308061226180001@192.168.1.3:

If the parts are defective, shouldn't they be paying to replace the whole thing instead of half? .... \ no. no they shouldnt be 'required' to pay for anything not in the written warranty!.....but, its also a very good reason GM is losing market share as we type! im not downing GM at all. i just realize its a gamble buying domestic now (since the mid 80's actually) and am willing to take the risk and pay the piper when poor engineering bites me on the arse. so i still buy GM by choice.......it is a matter of choice ya know!

If the car also came with a disclosure that says something along the lines of, "We've engineered the window regulators to have a mean time between failure of 5 years with a sigma of x" I would agree with you. Given that they don't provide a disclosure telling me that they engineered the car to self-destruct in expensive ways right out of warranty, I think maybe they should pay the whole cost.

Just because the warranty is four years, doesn't mean that they're entitled to design the car to melt into jelly at the end of that time.

Any purchase is a risk and I don't mind paying for repairs out of warranty when it's an honest act of probability. When something is so poorly engineered that it can't last more than a few years, that's not a simple act of reliability probability.

Plus, I doubt these windows were cycled up and down more than 30 times in their life time. How much operation time is that? Maybe 5 minutes. So these windows fail after 5 minutes of operation?

I received an email from a fellow asking advice on fixing this problem (he also has three bad windows--in a 2003), and after typing the reply, realized that it might help some folks if I post it here as well, so here it is:

As I wrote, I took it to a dealership and persuaded Buick to pay for half. If you want to take this up with Buick, try 800-521-7300.

As for self repair, it's definitely cheaper than the route I took, unless I get the $500 I paid back, somehow. Unfortunately, it never occured to me that there might be after-market window regulators. I mean, that's got to be a dealer-only part right? Not so, in this case.

First, you need to get the door panels off. There is a tool. You might do a dejanews (google groups) search on my name in the alt.auto.gm newsgroup for a thread within the last year on this topic. Some nice soul turned me on to the tool and did a better job of describing it than I am about to.

The tool is a sort of like a wide flat screw driver with a 'V' notch in the end. It is available at Auto Zone for less than $10. You slide it between the door panel and the door and use it to pop the door panel clips out of the door. There's a certain amount of feel and guess work to figuring out where the clips are, but it's not too hard, as they are hte points where the door panel resists being pulled away from the door.

Oh, before you do that, pop the little panel out of the door hand grip and remove the two bolts hidden by that little panel. Also, pop the window switch out of the door and unplug it--although IIRC you can do this (window switch) after you have the door panel off.

Okay, once you have the door panel off you can see the "regulator" and the window. The bottom of the window is bolted to the moving part of the regulator (let's call it a train). The train slides up and down on a wide rail. The cables to lift and lower the window attach to the train by snapping their enlarged ends into a plastic piece. Then the cables run to a spool which is driven by an attached electric motor. Note that the 'down' cable runs down to the bottom of the rail where it loops around a plastic guide, from which it can easily come dislodged.

Anyway, you can remove the whole regulator by unbolting the three bolts that hold the motor/spool assembly in place and the four bolts that hold the rail to the door. Then undo the two bolts that hold the train to the window. Now rotate the rail/train assembly to one side and extricate it from the inside of the door.

At this point you can either fabricate sheet metal to hold the window permanently up, or buy replacement regulators. GM replacement regulators are something like $230 each. But you can get the window regulators here:

for a little over $73 each, plus some amount of shipping. The front ones are also available there, but I saw the front regulators on Ebay for considerably less. Here

for $87 plus $18 shipping. Or he also has them separately at $46 each or thereabouts.

The links above are specific to year 2000 Buick Centurys, but those sellers may have regulators for other models.

Good luck, and anyone else wtih the this problem in a Buick Century, please post so we can see how many of us there are. However, while searching I saw an article that said the 'average' buyer of the Century is a 50-year-old woman and I'm not sure how many of them are reading news groups...

That is a great idea! With the price of these vehicles these days, that disclosure would be, at least, forthcoming.

Exactly right.....

Wouldn't it be a simple act of fraud?

Wasn't the GM slogan, at one time, 'GM, the mark of excellence' or engineered for excellence....something along those lines?

Dave S(Texas)

'87 Coupe DeVille