2008 Ford Crown Victoria Window Switches

Crown Victorias are usually pretty beefy cars.  Part of the reason is that they are simple.  What cars tend to be maintenance nightmares?  Cars that are "complicated".

One part that seems to have issues on the later cars are the window switches.

Vic 3.0's driver's window switch started to act strange not long after I took the car over.  I'd have to "finesse" the switch to get the window to go up, but not all the time.  It got worse and worse, and I started thinking I better start looking for a used set of switches.   

Of course, what happened?  It stopped working... with the window OPEN.

Now, I had it in back of my head Mystery Mechanic had a set of switches in his basement.  I looked around and found them.  BUT, I quickly discovered they worked, but had the same problem!  We then remembered that his '08 ALSO had the issue, and the part was the bad one.

I was at least able to put the window back up.

I decided to take apart my totally-toasted one to see if it could be fixed.  I thought perhaps some contacts would be cleaned.  In the end, I couldn't fix them and just gave up.

A trip to our favorite junk yard later, and I had a new (used) part in-hand.  This was in September 2020 and so far, they still work fine.  

There may be folks out there who know how to fix the switches, or may want to try it.  Below are some photos to help those people out.  

NOTE:  The switch style changed one last time, I think in 2009 or 2010.

Ford part number:  5L1T-14540-AWB

Exploded view of parts

Little dust/water guards slip right off... notice the copper connectors

View of bottom with connectors

Door Switch Panel Repair PART 2

Wellp, it looks like the Gorilla glue might have worked... the bad news is the tabs that I seem to really need are not those that I repaired!  I may have to get a black panel from a junk yard and do a little Dr. Frankenstein work...  The images below tell the whole story.

Tabs seemed pretty secure

Wiring...

... connected...

As you can see, the panel still didn't sit flat...

... in fact, I swear it is worse than before!

176,000 MILES and Door Switch Panel Repair PART 1

Today Vic 2.0 hit 176,000 miles.  It is amazing how few problems this car has had in it's life.  But it is now 11 years old, and is starting to show/feel it.

Many of you who own these cars are aware of a very annoying issue they have with the driver side switch panel mounting tabs breaking off and thus making the panel pop up.  This has annoyed me as well, and I tried adding small pieces of Velcro to the panel and door to keep the thing down.  Didn't work.  The self-adhesive didn't adhesive as well as I had hoped, and the thickness of the hook & loop halves added too much thickness, so even when the panel DID stay down, there was a "padded" effect.  In other words, the panel didn't sit flush like it is supposed to.

So today I was sitting in 2.0 in a parking lot, and used a screwdriver to fully remove the switch panel so I could peel off the Velcro.  And what did I find inside the door?  Two of the broken mounting tabs.   That made me start thinking about repair options.  In the past, I have used a plastic repair product that really worked well on a couple of broken Javelin grills, as well as the power/volume knob on Mystery Mechanic's Uniden scanner, which is still in 2.0.  

I headed on over to a local auto parts store to see what they had in stock for plastic glue/repair products, knowing they stock some hard to find items.  They didn't have anything of the proper quantity and/or price.  On my way out, the boss suggested Gorilla Glue.  I have never used it, and it didn't cost too much, so I said "ok, but if it doesn't work I'll be back to yell at you!".

Below are some photos I snapped during the "repair".  I put that in quotes because I am skeptical, and because the glue takes 24 hours to set up.  So stay tuned to see if the repair did or did not work!

Some of the supplies used

Some of the Velcro that didn't work out.  You can see where the tab has broken off.

One of the broken tabs I found inside the door.

Where the break and glue is.

Where the other break and glue is.