About a year ago, my lovely (and oh so dangerous today!) wife and I purchased a used Infiniti i30, and for the most part we've loved the car. Compared to the ancient Firebird I was bouncing around in, the Infiniti rides like a limo... It even gets better gas mileage, to boot.
But my wife has noticed (and mentioned) a strange phenomenon with this car, and until now I had written off her complaints as being groundless, because, well, they sounded crazy to me. I know better than to doubt this woman's word on things, but what would you tell someone who insists her car windows are going down by themselves when she's nowhere near the car?
On a couple of occasions she's mentioned to me that she's come out of the karate studio late at night only to find that the car's front windows, both driver's side and passenger, are completely open, despite her insistence (!) that she was certain they were left up and locked. This morning I noticed the windows were open when I carried her karate gi bag to the car before she left for work, but assumed she had lowered the window in order to back into the garage last night. Nope. They had just opened themselves during the night while we slept.
So far this window poltergeist hasn't struck when the car's been parked outside in the rain, but sooner or later it's bound to happen.
So I Googled the problem, and lo and behold, lots of Nissan and Infiniti owners have complained of the same issue. The standard explanation given for most of these incidents seems to involve the handy-dandy key fob, which (to our surprise) has a hidden feature: if you hold down the "door unlock" button for about five seconds, the front windows go down on the car. I assume this has something to do with helping to cool off the car on a hot day, or perhaps to help a locked out owner gain entry to a car if the key fob's door lock mechanism malfunctions.
Most of the responses given on-line suggest that the owner is somehow putting pressure on the key fob unintentionally, which is lowering their windows at inappropriate times. But some of the people posting problems with this issue insist that the key fob CAN'T be the problem, because they either don't use it or it's hung on a peg and couldn't possibly be involved.
So I called a local Infiniti dealership and spoke to a woman in their service department, and she said it could also be caused by a window switch mechanism that has suffered "water intrusion" damage. She recommended bringing it in for a new switch for the driver's side door, since that one controls both doors.
"It's a minor repair and not expensive at all!" she assured me.
So I asked what "not expensive" means in her world, and she said, "Probably less than $350 or so. Simple!"
I don't know what world someone lives in where a $350 charge is "not expensive", but it's not my world.
And it certainly IS expensive when you consider all we ask is that the car's windows stay where we leave them when we're not using the damn car...
(heavy sigh...)
11 comments:
Yeah, "not expensive" has a whole 'nother meaning at car dealerships. The radio antenna on my old boat partially delaminated,and tho it's unsightly, the radio still works. One day at the dealer I asked how much a new antenna would be- and this is a 2-foot piece of plastic-coated wire, for bean's sake. Oh, $200 or so, sez the guy. I started laughing and told him that I'd spring for a little duct tape and keep the $200.
Your problem is considerably more serious, seeing as it rains a few times a year in Murfreesboro.
Either get it fixed, or get plastic seat covers.
Sorry to hear that the Hooey Gods are still on your case.
Cynthianne, my lovely wife sometimes leaves her pocketbook in the car when she teaches cardio-kickboxing, so this could be an expensive thing to ignore.
Not to mention the fact that some poor bastard might decide to slip inside the car and wait to assault her after class. Then we'd be on the hook for medical bills, blood removal from the car seats, and endless lawsuits from lawyers claiming the last sixty or seventy kicks to the head were completely unnecessary and probably caused some of the guy's brain damage.
No rest for the weary.
I'm getting it fixed to protect the criminal element in Rutherford County.
What I find particularly annoying is the fact that they describe the source of this problem as having been caused by "water intrusion" to the switch.
Something that might be caused by, oh, I don't know, say maybe, the window going down on its own in the rain?
Ka-Ching! Planned obsolescence and the return on one's investment!
For the first thing that was a great post and covered the diagnosis of a problem. All I gotta say is I hope it fixes this issue.
I'm cheap and would want to learn more before shelling that much out. I do not like might try when it comes to these things.
Good luck!!
I dug out the snow in an area adjacent to my drive way big enough to park my RAV-4; so that I could use my snow blower unimpeded. I rolled down the window in order to back the car in and forgot to roll it back up. That night it rained like hell and the floor of the car was flooded.
Know any fix for that?
the Ol'Buzzard
Ol'Buzz, I don't know if they've worked out a solution for operator error, but if they DO idiot proof cars I will be the first idiot in line to buy one.
That story sounds like it would make a great blog post. Let me know when you've got that one posted!
The first car I had with power windows was a '58 T-Bird. The windows would work perfectly until it rained and then had to play with the switch to get the window to go up while getting wet because it was raining.
see....that's why you should just buy a horse.....the windows always work on a horse
Yeah, Jim, but the pollution they leave behind is toxic to most living things, and the horn NEVER stops blowing.
Don't you have a hand crank, Not for the windows, but to start the engine. Remembering my uncles Minneapolis Moline tractor that burned coal oil (Kerosene). Life used to be simple.
Had one years ago(the 80s) with those $^^%#$ windows, and sure enough, winter and wet weather coming on,the whole thing stopped working with the glass down. Found out they work by being pulled up and down by a plastic ladder which had snapped that "only" cost $75. Screw that.
So when I went looking for a nearly new car in 2002 I told the dealers "I'm buying outright, and NO POWER WINDOWS" The ones that would not listen I walked away from. I can fix a manual window myself, and the parts aren't nearly that much.
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