So as of a coupe of days ago, anytime I start my car both widows roll down and my dome light comes on full brightness.

I can roll the windows up manually, and when I open and close the door the dome light fades out.

Any ideas? i was thinking of rebooting the car by disconnecting the battery and leaving it disconnected for a few minutes....other than that I was thinking maybe the switch in the door lock which you can use to roll the windows up is somehow stuck.....but I dunno.

help?

 

Ghosts

 

sounds like its possessed to me, employ a priest for a exorcism?

this week after installing my freshly charged battery the gremlin in the sun roof went away so you may have some luck with the battery disconnect thing.

 

You haven't gone and named your car "Sybill" or "Damien", have you??

+1 on reboot

If that does not cure the problem, then it might be early signs of the ignition switch going out on you. This is a common issue in 996s and, when they start to go, all kinds of weird and wonderful electrical gremlins emerge. The switch core is a $10 part from autohausaz.com, and there are good replacement procedures at renntech.org. Replacing the entire ignition lock assembly is the permanent fix, but the part is a few hundred bucks, and the installation is quite a bit more complex.

Good luck.

 

She's a witch, burn her!

WAG, but sometimes a faulty ignition switch causes crazy symptoms that seem completely unrelated. It's a cheap fix. IIRC, it's a $12 part.

 

That would be nice if it were the ignition switch. I've replaced mine once already...to correct a sticking key problem. That was only 1.5 years ago.

It does kind of make sense since the windows roll down the moment I crank the car to start it. I can understand the dome light symptom too, I just can't quite understand the windows though.

Geezuz those switches must be poorly made. You get what you pay for I guess.

 

Just ordered a new switch from Pelican...$10.25. We'll see how that goes and I'll report back.

 

I remember weird things started to happen on my older audi and it happened to be the ignition switch as well..

 

Since I'm in full maintenance mode with my car - I thought I'd update the window thread. Some day someone will benefit right?

A couple of nights ago I disconnected the negative lead on my battery for a few minutes, then reattached it. That's the reboot I wanted to try.

I thought it was odd that the light under the hood didn't come on when I reconnected (it was on when the battery was disconnected and of course the hood was open when I reconnected) but ok - a lot of these lights nowadays fade to black after a while to save the battery in case you leave something open too long.

So then I went for a start and it winds and winds kinda slow (I think) but does not start.

OK

I go for another try and after quite a few cranks - boom she finally fires right up....and the windows roll down and the dome light comes on.

Mmm.

Turn it off, wait a few seconds, crank it again, and the car starts normally...and the windows *don't* roll down.

OK

I go inside, put the kids to bed and go out to buy some milk. I take the super long way to the store (about 20 miles out of the way in fact) and half way through the drive I pull over, turn it off, take the key out of the ignition, set the alarm, then de-alarm, put the key back in and start the car. Car fires up no problem and the windows *don't* roll down.

That was two days ago, and so far the problem has not recurred. I've probably started the car a total of 6 times since then.

Now, it did warm up over the last few days, and the first time this happened was during a cold snap..so the temperature might be triggering the problem.

Then there's a reasonable chance that the negative battery cable is not making a good conection, either at the terminal or where it bolts to the bulkhead. Bad ground is bad.

My plan is to clean up the connections and see what happens. I'm out of action until next week on account of my cracked oil sump plate so won't know what's up for a while.

I won't put the my ignition switch in just yet. I want to see if the problem goes away for good.

Ain't this fun?