Electric windows

[karl1171]

My girlfriend's car, a 91 e36 (316 auto) has a problem with the electric windows. They haven't worked intermittently for a week or two and now they don't work at all. The fuse is ok and there is a supply to it.

I've also checked for a supply on the safety cut out switch and actual window switches, but theres no power on either.

I wondered if it could be a faulty relay, but I don't know where the relay is situated in the fusebox.

Any suggestions?

[winfred]

the bastard relay that you seek is hiding under the dash below the cluster by the column, it's called the comfort relay and it develops a bad joint on the board, it can be resoldered, i can't really tell you exactly where it is without a picture, somebody has got to have a pic on the net try searching for comfort relay, and if too much crap pops up start adding words like windows and e36 bmw

My girlfriend's car, a 91 e36 (316 auto) has a problem with the electric windows. They haven't worked intermittently for a week or two and now they don't work at all. The fuse is ok and there is a supply to it.

I've also checked for a supply on the safety cut out switch and actual window switches, but theres no power on either.

I wondered if it could be a faulty relay, but I don't know where the relay is situated in the fusebox.

Any suggestions?

[karl1171]

Cheers. Found a site detailing repair etc. working fine now, but took a little extra time because i was looking on the wrong side of the car - its RH drive!

[94is]

I have a slightly different problem in my E36. My drivers side window only goes up 2" at a time. The one touch down works fine and the other window and sunroof aren't affected at all. Do you think the relay could have caused this, or is it a problem with that one motor? I have the window motor from the m3, so it wouldn't be too hard to replace it completely since I already have the parts.....

Here is a page I found on the comfort relay repair. The problems sound a bit different than my own.

[winfred]

the e36s are a pain with all of the choices of motor/regulator, generally when it only moves a little at a time it's a microswitch problem in the door, ether dead or unhooked

I have a slightly different problem in my E36. My drivers side window only goes up 2" at a time. The one touch down works fine and the other window and sunroof aren't affected at all. Do you think the relay could have caused this, or is it a problem with that one motor? I have the window motor from the m3, so it wouldn't be too hard to replace it completely since I already have the parts.....

Here is a page I found on the comfort relay repair. The problems sound a bit different than my own.

[fixmye36]

I have the same problem with my 92 E36 2 door. The Windows only go down about 2 inches at a time, so I have to keep hitting the switches to get it to do up or down. I have looked at the comfort relay as suggested by many forumns, but it looks brand new. Any ideas?

[shogun]

even if it looks o.k. Sometimes it is difficult to detect.

here is a nice info about that

[fixmye36]

Thanks I will do that. However, when I unplugged the comfort relay, it's doing the exact same thing.

[S Lawns]

Rather than start a new thread I though I would tag along here. Hope this is the right way to do this.

I have a 92 325i for about 3 years now and have had similar window problems. First, drivers side rear started working intermittently, would always go down but it was hit or miss back up. Finally it just would not go up so I disconnected and propped up. Next the passenger rear started acting in the same way and so I unplugged when it was up. Finally, the passenger front followed suit. It would go down but I would have to continue playing with the switch until it would go up. Unplugged as well and has been like that for the last year.

Drivers front has never even hesitated to work. I ended up finding good used motors to replace and just before tearing them out I jumped the first faulty motor to the battery and it worked both ways just fine.

So now I figure it is not the motors but the switch. Can the comfort relay fail on the three passenger windows and let the driver's window work flawlessly?

[bill g]

That comfort relay can also cause probelms with sunroof operation. My wifes E36 325 had problems with the sunroof intermittently not working - if the little white arrow in the overhead switch was not lit the sunroof would not operate, then light would come on and it worked fine. Like Shogun says check those solder joints in the relay with a magnifying glass. I found there were about 5 or 6 joints and they were just about all cracked or faulty. Resoldered them, and reinstalled the relay, problem fixed.

Bill G