I'm not sure if this belongs here or in the Interior section

Anyways I had my Camaro out today and was doing a little cruising. I had both the driver's side and passenger side windows down. When I got back home I pulled in the garage and before I shut the car off I hit the buttons to roll the windows up. The passenger side went right up, but the driver's side only went up about an inch and stopped. I shut the car off and just turned on the accessories and tried to roll it up again. It went up maybe a half an inch before stopping. When I turned on the accessories I noticed the cooling fan kicked on. So I turned it off and waited about 30 sec and turned the key and the fan kicks on again. I hit the button and the window rolled up about 2 more inches before stopping. So I went in the house and went back out about 10 minutes later. I turned on the accessories again and the fan kicked on again. I hit the button and the window rolled all the way up. I've had the car 3 years and this has never happened before. The fan has never kicked on when I turned the key and the window has never behaved like this before. At first I thought the window motor was going out, but I figured it that was the case it would have just died all together instead of eventually working like normal. Anybody have any ideas?

 

I waited a couple hours and went out and turned the key again. I didn't start the engine, just turned on the accessories. The fan didn't kick on again, so I'm just going to write that off that it needed to come on. I rolled down the driver's side window again and it went down just fine. It wasn't slow or anything. It was the normal speed. Then I went to roll it back up and it went up about an inch and stopped. I waited 30 seconds and it went up another inch or so. I ended up waiting about 3 minutes and it rolled up just fine. Then I'd try to roll it back down and it would go down an inch or so and stop. Would it be the motor? I would think if it was the motor then it would just be dead all together. Also when I hit the switch and it doesn't raise or lower, I can hear the clicking noise inside the door as if the motor is trying to work, but nothing is happening.

 

Possibly motor and/or it is sticking and hard for the motor to roll it up and this is tripping a circuit breaker which is then resetting itself.

OR....

Perhaps a poor battery connection or poor electrical connection elsewhere and the motor is not getting enough electrical power, over working, and tripping a circuit breaker.

Might first check your battery and main electrical connections that they are clean and snug.

Then might want to compair voltage levels with the drivers door motor and the passenger door motor as they operate.

And might want to try the passenger door switch and see if that has the same problem.

Then if there is a lack of voltage getting to the motor, you can do a voltage drop test. More on that here...
http://www.engine-light-help.com/voltage-drop.html

 

Just the way it acted it reminded me of how would be if my battery was almost dead or in the process of dying. I just replaced my battery when I took the car out of storage back in May. Maybe there is a loose connection. Assuming everything is ok with the connection at the battery how would I go about checking the voltage levels? I've never had to do anything like this before....

 

Book: Haynes - Automotive Electrical Manual - All Common Repairs...
http://www.themotorbookstore.com/el.html

(They may sell the above book at your local auto parts store???)

After you read the above, then buy a multimeter. You may decide to buy a multimeter with certain features once you learn a little about this.

But on the other hand, a multimeter with more features is going to have a big instruction book on how to use it. So might be easier to buy something simple to start out with.

I'll also give you a google search link for how to use a multimeter. But if you click on a page which has a lot of math formulas and looks like only Einstein would understand it, forget about that page and find another which explains things in easy to understand basic instructions.

Multimeters can be used for simple automotive wiring testing, the instructions for how to do this can be simple and basic, and most people can learn to do this with a bit of reading. However multimeters are also used for complex electronic circuits and you guys don't need to bother with learning any of that stuff.

How to use a multimeter...
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&s...imeter&aqi=g10