Drivers door power window switch repair

[BEJinFbk]

Excellent step by step description. BUT, for those owning the V70 or V70 XC on the S80 chassis (mine's a 2002), the switch is electronic, and does not have brass contacts. The bad news is that it fails in the same way (ain't progress grand?). I found this out the hard way.

First, the switch is secured to the inside of the door panel with a torx screw and washer into a plastic boss, clipped into the panel. Using the "if it doesn't fit. force it" maxim, I prised the switch out, breaking the attachment boss loose. Don't worry, it really isn't needed. The clips on the switch itself do a great job of securng it to the door panel.

I disassembled the switch per the instructions, but found a circuit board where I had expected to see brass leaf contacts. On the reverse side was a rubber pad, covering many electronic switch pockets. All Stop! I cleaned the dust out of the switch and reassembled it, wondering whether I had destroyed it.

I reinstalled it in the car, and lo and behold, everything worked perfectly. I must have inadvertently gotten a connector pin cleaned, or some of the dust I removed allowed something to work.

I'm an engineer, so I want to know what I did to get this working, but you know, I'll take it. Saved me about $400.

Your reply is certainly helpful, but may be a bit more useful to the owners in this section of MVS:
https://www.matthewsvolvosite.com/forums ... um.php?f=9

[adameshawyer1]

This is an absolutely brilliant tutorial.

Fixed my problem straight away, thanks so much, saved me a great deal of money.

Adam Norfolk UK

[BobLane]

Excellent- Worked perfectly! I owe you a box of Snickers

Question: There is a small spring (1 inch long) with a shinny metal cap... which just fell out when I took the cover off the switch - I would think it is for the door lock rocker switch.
It appeared to be just set in the white cap- no mounting slot or pin- I just reassembled with the spring just resting against the little light for the door lock switch- it seems to work fine- any thoughts on how the spring should be placed during reassembly?

Bob in Durham

[cn90]

Just want to add to this excellent DIY guide.

My car symptom: RR window does not go down.
When pulling from the Master Switch, all you hear is a click in the RR window, but when pushing to go down ---> nothing, RR window does not go down.

Couple tips:

1. When prying the Master Switch out, use a very small screwdriver and protect the trim with some cloth to prevent marring it.

2. Once the bottom part is pried out (using small screwdriver and go slow!), you will see the corrosion at contact points.

3. I use the small screwdriver and scrape the contact points gently. That is all you need.
Use a flashlight to verify that corrosive parts are gone.

4. During dis-assembly, a mysterious part (tiny spring with round tip) fell out. It turns out this piece belongs to the "Lock" area (at the very front of the Master Switch). See photo.

5. Slide the plastic tab (that controls the individual switch) back and forth to be sure it is smooth.
During re-assembly, make sure that all parts line up (the "Lock" button, the 4 switches pins, the "On-OFF" button) before snapping the Top and Bottom parts together.

6. Verify that all switches work before popping the Master Switch back in.

See the photos:

VolvoSwitch01.JPG (87.24 KiB) Viewed 4513 times

VolvoSwitch02.JPG (93.72 KiB) Viewed 4513 times

[abscate]

FYI I cleaned my door switch carefully a few years back and got a few months out of it before it started spitting sparks and smoke again...Im sure it failed due to water intrusion from rain through open window on driver side, e.g. user error.

[cn90]

1+,

Sit in the driver seat, close the door and you will quickly realize that the RR switch (in the Master Switch) sits at the lowest portion, so any water that gets in will pool in the RR area.

[WesleyW]

Awesome walk through. If you have a small screw driver kit that works better than a knife to get the switch apart. For the trim piece I just did that with my fingers. It pops right off. And for some of the contacts a flat toothpick works better. For others a round one because the flat one will break. (flat toothpicks for the contacts that aren't touching, round for the ones that are.)

[spec1alk]

Before you take on this project, I suggest an easier, and potentially immediate solution, should you need to fix the switch in a pinch.

I cannot believe I fixed anything on this car with a jiggle, but, I did. My RR window was refusing to go up. I poked around on the interwebs and found that twenty to thirty quick up down motions of the switch might be enough to clean the contacts. I was able get the window up quickly and easily.

Maybe someday when I have nothing else to do I'll follow this thread. In the meantime, the kids are forbidden from opening the windows.

Thanks for the exhaustive detail, and help. This place is GREAT!

MK

MK,

Thank you so much! My rear driver window was stuck halfway down, and neither the master switch nor rear switch were working to roll it up (only down). I clicked the rear driver switch on the master switch up and down really fast about 10 times and the window started working again! I wish I would have seen this post sooner! (Luckily its summer so I didn't get any rain in the car )

I suggest everyone try this before the cleaning procedure above if you just want a fix for rolling it up!

Thanks again!

[Hausfrau]

HELP, my front passenger window is not going up.

This might seem like an easy fix after reading the post in this forum on how to remove and clean the master switch, but it did not work for me.

I decided to skip the cleaning process and bought a new master switch instead ( v70xc 1998 )

However, installing the new switch did NOT solve the problem.
Now the automatic door lock doesn't work any more either. Neither on the old nor on the new switch.
The automatic door lock works on the passenger side switch though. I have also ordered a new switch for the passenger side, but was wondering if anyone might have had the same problem? Can it be the motor, even though the window went down on the old switches, but not up?

Its raining and cold and I am about to go on a long trip. Why now??

[Ozark Lee]

The problem could be with the switch on the passenger's side. The master switch is the "usual suspect" but you really need to use a DVM to check voltages at the passengers side window and work your way back.

If you need to get the window up then you should be able to use a battery or a battery charger and go directly to the motor wires.

Start at the motor wires (The Green wire and the White wire on terminals 4 and 5 of the large connector). They should toggle between + battery voltage and - battery voltage as the window up and window down switch is pressed - both the local switch and the master switch.

If you have no reading there then test the voltages between the Blue Wire on pin 1 and, individually, the White wire on pin 2 and the Blue/White wire on pin 3. One pairing should read battery voltage in the window up position from the master switch and the other pairing should read battery voltage when the window down position is pressed on the master switch.

If you get good readings on the motor wires and no motor movement check the resistance between the Green wire (pin 4) and the White wire (pin 5). It should read a fairly low resistance as in under 100 Ohms. If it reads open then the motor is bad or the wires from the connector to the motor are bad.

If you get good voltage readings between pins 1/2 and 1/3 but not between pins 4/5 when the master switch is pressed then that indicates the passenger's side switch is bad.

This would be a lot easier to explain if I could post the schematic but the Volvo legal team prevents me (as a moderator) from doing so. Other posters can chime in and they are not precluded from posting diagrams the way I am.

In order to get the window to go up or go down you can hook up 12 volts DC directly to the Green wire (pin 4) and the White wire (pin 5). Reversing the voltage source leads will change the window direction from up to down. Only apply external voltages to those two wires and do so only with the connector unplugged.

...Lee