jayg1234

Hi Guys, I'm new to this so please take it easy on me................

Whenever I open either door on my Boxster the windows both drop about 4 inches. They will not raise beyond this again using the window switches and will only close when I disengage and then re-engage the roof handle?

Other than this they operate as they should. The car was off the road a number of years before I recommissioned it and I wonder if a switch/relay/fuse maybe at fault?

As a side note, the roof is also not operating as it should, it would go down and not come back up - on inspection it was as if there was nothing stopping the motors spinning when it was fully down and then when it reached beyond its normal travel it would not come forwards again (this isn't such a big issue at the moment as I have the hard top fitted!)

Any help on either of these problems and whether they may even be linked would be greatly appreciated!

Macster

The windows dropping 4" upon opening the doors suggests roof latch switch is defective. You have a hard top fitted and it must latch at where the soft top latches.

If not the roof latch switch perhaps another switch related to the roof. The soft top behavior when you lower it and then try to raise it suggests one or more of the switches used to monitor the top's position are not working right.

Whenever I read a car has been off the road, unused for a while -- and a number of years is a while -- my first thought is rodent damage to the wiring. If the car has been stored outside exposed to the elements rodents, again, or water damage.

Shawn Stanford

Timely: It looks like I'm going to have to dig into my top and switches. When I pop the lock, I get the 4" drop, but pushing the button doesn't lower the top. The switch has been getting dicey (the windows will drop if I hit a big enough bump in the road), and it looks like it's time to pull it apart.

Macster

Well, I'm no Boxster top expert -- you want someone named I think Maurice -- but the top failing to work after the top latch is unlatched and the windows drop which is a sign the latch switch is working can be due to a bad (maybe intermittently so) parking brake switch. The parking brake has to be applied before the top will work.

Shawn Stanford

That makes perfect sense. I'll start investigating there.

joseph mitro

my top functions the same as yours Shawn Stanford. I think it's the latch switch, not the parking brake. when I push on the switch enough it eventually engages the top motor.

Macster

Should be easy to test. Try the latch, push on it, a number of times to see if the top can be made to work. If one can then the latch switch certainly becomes more a suspect. Not unusual. They have been known to fail. Or if the latch doesn't appear to be the problem release and reapply the parking brake a number of times to see if one can get the top to work.

Shawn Stanford

I watched a couple of videos about this and the easy way to tell is if the parking brake light on the dash comes on when the brake handle is pulled. If it doesn't, there's the problem.

I went out to the car at lunchtime to go to the gym and the top went down with no problems. However, on the drive to work this morning I hit a bump and the windows dropped. It took three tries with the roof handle to get the switch to engage so I could put them back up. I definitely need to get into that switch this year.