Inherited a '00 Disco 2 from a garage. Sat all winter in PNW. I'm cleaning out mold. The windows worked fine before parking in garage but now no windows work in the vehicle. How can I troubleshoot this? Any thoughts/advice appreciated.

 

Hello fellow PNW'er! The wet winters here don't do our poor trucks any favors if they just sit. The very first step is always to check the fuses because it's the easiest and cheapest plus the fact that none of your windows work points to a problem "close to the battery" rather than "closer to the individual window". If those are good I would next determine if it's a mechanical issue or electrical . To go about that I would unlock the truck, pop the hood and disconnect the battery. Then put a multimeter set to the amps setting (the bigger one) inline with the battery cable to the battery. This way the multimeter is part of your car's circuit and it can measure current being passed through it. Turn the truck on (DO NOT attempt to start it) and read the baseline current reading. Try and roll the windows down. If the current reading jumps significantly it means that the motors are getting electricity but are somehow stalled, which means they are shot or there is some sort of mechanical obstruction. If the current does not increase it means that the motor is not getting any electricity. From there I would probably start with the center console switches as I would think the problem would be more likely there than with any of the connectors, especially if all of the windows don't work.

As a side note, if the truck is going to be sitting regularly during the winter I would put some sort of RV moisture absorber in it. I drive mine about once a week and between outing moisture can build up. Also- it's worth mentioning that you will want to change out the fluids sooner rather than later (especially the oil) as they absorb moisture and if the truck didn't get up to temperature to boil that off there is probably a fair amount of it in the fluids, to say nothing of how much was in there before the truck was parked.

 

Thanks for the advice greisinb. I finally got around to troubleshooting today. The sunroof and electric windows are all on the same circuit, 30A. I pulled the fuses, they visually don't appear blown. I'm going to install new ones and see what happens. This is interesting because it's also the circuit the heater blower is on and rig's had overheating issues in the past. If it's a problem with the 30A circuit, what does this mean?

 

Heater blower shouldn't have anything to do with overheating issues. Coolant flows through the heater coils continuously, whether the blower is on or not.

 

The sunroofs and windows are on separate circuits (I know this because my sunroofs are shot so I unplugged the fuse so they can't be operated and my windows still work). Looking in to it- the sunroofs are on fuse 12 and the windows are on fuse 34, both are 30 amp fuses. Just to make sure, you should be working in the interior fuse box, not the engine compartment fuse box. Be careful while locating fuses, the "bottom row" are spares and not actual fuses!

 

Nine times out of ten the sunroof motors sieze due to rust internally between the rotor and housing. You can disassemble, clean, grease coat the rotor and they will work fine. Window motors that is not as common but still possible. Most of the time the window motor issues are switches or regulator related.

 

Good to know, I was planning on taking a good look at them when I have my headliner out and do my sunroof drain repair, hopefully it will happen soon!