In my younger days, whenever a problem arose that proved to be difficult, I would raise my hands and run away! These days, however, I will tend to dive in and see what is what. Must be an age thing.
This was the case with a pesky rear door regulator on a 2006 Jeep Liberty that kept breaking. More specifically, the part that kept breaking was a plastic riser that rides up and down on a rail driven by a spiral cable. In a previous blog, I indicated I felt that the part was poorly made and was unable to do the job for which it was designed. In my case, three of these mechanisms have bit the dust. On the first occasion, the car was still newish and Jeep repaired it for free. The second time around, about 14 months ago, same problem but this time the cost through an Independent Repair Facility (IRF) was $135.00. This last time, the part broke even though I never used the window! A call to Jeep resulted in a quote for repair of $420! To be fair, my IRF was lower, but not by much. Either way this was not a good thing as I was informed at that time that the regulators were defective and that I could count on the problems happening with the other Jeep power windows. Bummer! Now, as for the IRF. I don’t blame them as this is something they couldn’t know about. Jeep, however, was a different story.
So, how did I fix my problem with a $50 part? I researched on the internet and discovered that a repair part was available from both Amazon (a company called TKO Auto) and from another company called Steiger. While Steiger is more expensive, they do offer better documentation. Either source offers basically the same part. Steiger does offer a hex wrench and machine screws while TKO Auto offers only a single rivet ( I assume you will have to supply the rivet gun). I’m going to guess that if there are broken pieces of plastic riser that have gotten into the power window motor gears, you might want to go with Steiger. That wasn’t the case with me, so I ordered the part from TKO Auto (Amazon.com) and used a machine screw that I had lying around the house.
The total repair time was about two hours, but only because I was doing it for the first time. If my other rear window also breaks in a similar fashion, I’m sure I could do the whole thing in under an hour tops! Either way, I now have a fix that should last the life of the vehicle.
If you are experiencing a similar problem and would like some advice, I would be happy to open up some dialog. Please contact me at Forsythkid@Gmail.com and I’ll help if I can. Note: I did document my fix with pictures which I can forward.
