You don’t always need to remove the door panel to determine what is wrong with your power window system. Many times, a fluctuation in the strength of power to your dome or headlights, caused by the demand of current, can tell you whether or not the motor is getting any electricity.

Perform this test at night with your engine off, but ignition and headlights on. Simply depress the power window switch.

If you see a slight dimming of your headlights or your dome/dash lights, you are getting an electrical connection to the switch and it is sending that power to the motor. If this happens and you aren’t hearing any noise, you can be relatively sure that it’s the power window motor that is to blame, not the power window switch. Sometimes you hear a click-click-click-click when the motor is failing. (To find a replacement Window Motor in the RockAuto catalog, simply click on the “Interior” category and search for “Window Motor”)

If you depress the switch button and you don’t experience any dimming, it’s likely to be the power window switch or an electrical break in the electrical harness. If the power window switch button feels spongy, loose or at all different from the other window switch buttons, you likely are in need of a new power window switch.