Need some advice or help...... Replaced headliner material on original shell because sagging over the rear seat. 65,000 mile 2004 XJ8 owned from new.

After replacing headliner, power windows only work if Headlights are OFF. When lights are ON, windows and sunroof do not work. Also, when headlights are on, the light below the rearview mirror is on, but real dim, Clock light and lights below the top display are also Off all the time, at night can't see radio display or any of the lower buttons.

Took it apart twice thinking that a connector was loose. Reseated all connections and nothing.

Any guidance is appreciated.
Lee Wintrode
904-708-5815

 

Greetings Lee,
I do not have any first hand experience with this YET, but am seeking a headliner job right now. I comiserate with you big time. I hope you can fix this pronto. I have a gut feeling that the sunroof electronics have been compromised in some way. A gouge from a tool on a wiring loom could have damaged the insulation sufficiently to allow voltage creep from one circuit to another. I've read about Voltage Density on Wikipedia and come across some amazing info about how voltage travels along surfaces, causing all kinds of problems. Years ago, my best friend Rico, a Belgian Malinois, chewed the trailer hitch wiring causing the dash lights to flash when the brake pedal was pressed! An easy wire repair job solved the problem. Man I hope you can nail this down and fix it real fast and get that Big Cat back on the road!

 

Pull the liner down and inspect the lighted sunvisor wires where the visors are screwed into the roof. They have a habit of getting screwed...literally

 

Thank you for the feedback..... I have passed along to the dealer that has now had the car for 2 weeks....... I may just have to give it to them to pay the bill............ Thanks again.

 

This sounds like a great idea. I have alreaady sent your suggestion to the dealer that has been working on the problem for 2 weeks now. WOW. I may have to give them the car to pay for the bill.

It just seems like there should be a factory tech that could say check this, 1, 2, 3. There are only like 5 touch points to pull the headliner and we know everything was fine until the headliner was re done. The car only has like 60,000 miles on it and I have had it since new. SO iut has not been all tore up or anything like that. The felt just came loose from the molded cardboard which sort of ticked me off. And this car was always garaged, even under cover at the airport, so less exposed than most cars. But it is hot and humid in Florida. Thanks again for your feedback. Lee

 

Lee, I had the same problem, I change the dimmer switch and it fixed the problem

 

Hi ! Note the date of the post before yours on this thread.

 

 

i have the same exact problem now. how strange. I too had the headliner changed by a pro, now the only time windows work is when the headlight switch is in the OFF position. same exact symptoms as LEE

 

The thread won't die because the problem keeps happening and no one posts a solution.
Same here. Headliner replaced and now all windows stuck down.

 

Well, to be fair, @Brutal did post a potential solution. It is just that no one has provided the result of their attempts. @gbmarc, have you checked the visor wires? Check all the wires that are associated with the headliner for potential damage, e.g., visors, headliner console, etc... Whenever something like this happens it is usually a result of something being disturbed or damaged during the servicing.

-j

 

OK, tomorrow I'll pull off the sun visors and take a look. If it's not too hard I'll pull down the sunroof console too and peek around for a red and red/blue wire.
I do know that a red wire comes from the Front Electronic Module, then splits 5 ways. One to the sunroof module and the other four one to each window motor assembly. A red/blue wire does the same thing. So, that is the direct connection between the sunroof module and the window motors and why you can mess up the windows by diddling with the headliner.
It would be nice to know how the window motor is activated. There are 6 connections to each window motor assembly.
1. Power from the fuse box ( heavier gauge red/brown)
2. Earth wire (heavier gauge Black)
These(1 and 2) I assume are the power connections to the motor which is switched on by a relay inside the assembly. Then there are smaller wires which I assume activate the relay:
3. from a down switch
4. from an up switch
and finally there are two from the Front Electronic module. What these do I'm not sure but I guess they are from the Global Open/Close switch which also has to activate the sunroof.
5. Red
6. Red/blue
If you switch the car ignition to position 1, then wires 1 and 6 have 12v on them.
I was experimenting today with the door panel off and the window motor assembly in my hand and even with 12v across 1 and 2 I couldn't activate the motor.
I then realized I had no idea HOW to activate it. I assume if you had power across 1 and 2 and then sent 12v down 3,4,5 or 6 that the window would move. But I got a big nothing.
Why the sunroof still operates on the Global Open/Close when all the windows are dead on my car is a weird mystery. The same activation wires go to all of them. Of course, I don't know where the five-way split occurs. Up in the headliner or maybe somewhere else. But even if it was broken to all the windows, why wouldn't the door switches (which are separate wires) still activate them?
Unless of course the switches aren't permitted to activate the relay unless there's a simultaneous signal from the FEM too.
It's all guessing in the dark!!
Mark

 

I don't have the headliner off yet but I did remove both A-pillar trim panels.
On the RHS I found a bigger mustard colored wire that didn't look right. On closer examination you can see that it's got too hot and the sheathing has melted.
This is not good. Don't know what it's for but somewhere a fuse that should have blown, didn't!
I guess I'll pull the headliner down and see how far the damage goes. I'm still looking for the red and red/blue wires to be damaged because these are the ones that link with the windows.


Right A-pillar, orangey/yellow wire meltdown

Right A-pillar. Upper side of connector where mustard wire has melted.

 

Good job detecting this. Well, I agree that doesn't look good. As it is a relatively large wire, it seems to be a supply wire. I would test it for ground or positive with the ignition off and on. If it seems to be dead or grounded, I would go check all fuses with a DMM or a logic probe, by checking that both fuse terminals have the same polarity, for each fuse. Just probe the tops of each fuse. You may be familiar with this technique, but in case you weren't or others aren't I thought I'd describe it.

Probe each terminal (indicated by the arrows) for the same polarity with ignition switched on. If they differ the fuse has blown. I did this for every fuse when I first took ownership of the car as a preemptive precaution to make sure that all fuses were good before looking for any issues.

I suspect the wire heat damage may have occurred prior/simultaneous to the fuse blowing (I hope it did), and there is a good chance this is a symptom of your problem and hopefully finding a screw through a wire will be the actual cause. Good luck!

 

Just a quick update and some further understanding.
I traced back my melted orange wire to the left sun visor. i.e. It has melted to varying degrees all the way from the sun visor down to the cabin fuse box in the right passenger footwell.
The 10A fuse is not blown! Either because it was already replaced (I'm on day 6 of ownership) or the fuse is bad because if you generate enough heat to fuse the wires together I think a fuse should really blow. Maybe I'll replace it with 5A!! Anyway, the sun visor has no short or fault. What happened was that the person who removed the headliner couldn't figure how to disconnect the electrical connection on the sun visor. (It's hidden underneath the headliner that your currently trying to get down!! rather stupid design) Anyway, so he just snipped off the cables (see photo comparing good visor with bad one). Not only that, but presumably to hide his sin he then snipped off the connector itself right up close to where it enters the loom.
These wires are very fine and very close together so I'm assuming that in snipping them off he caused the short.
All this still hasn't solved my windows stuck down problem, but I'll wait until the new headliner loom is delivered before I go further on that, but it does shed some light on why several people have had problems after headlining removal. If you don't know how to disconnect the sun visor cables you stand a good chance of messing them up and causing extensive problems. I assume that there is power to the visors even if the ignition is off? i.e. It's important to check your lipstick even when the car's not running.

bad sun visor where cable has been snipped impossibly close to the exit ferrule next to the untouched visor.

In many places the half the loom is fused together. Breaking it apart damages the wires.

 

Yep, there is power going to the sun visor even when ignition is off for the vanity mirror light.
Also yikes, that is pretty messed up, hopefully the person who did this pays for all the damage.

 

Today I pulled out the whole roof wiring loom.
I now have a little more understanding of the Window Module but not fully.
In order to test the window manually you have to do the following.
Apply 12v to the thick cables Red/Brown+ve and Black-ve
Apply 12v to the red (Enable) wire
Touch one of the switch connectors (on the passenger door they are White and White/Green) to earth.
The window will operate based on whether you earthed the white or white/Green
The Global (red/blue) connection I have no idea how it works. On my car I always see it has 12v applied to it. I tried pressing the Global Open/Close button and using the key to activate it while monitoring the voltage, but it had no effect on the 12v on the wire. It stayed at 12v no matter what.
The reason my windows don't operate is because the ENABLE wire (red one) never gets sent 12V.
I have no idea why. Between my red cable and earth I see resistance of 160 ohms. Whether that means it is shorted or whether it means the Front Electronic Module is fried, I don't know.
On my passenger door with the open door panel, I took the motor module connector (loom side) and applied 12v to the red Enable wire and then went around and operated the switches on all the doors which all wound straight up!!
It's nice to have closed windows but I still don't know why the Enable wire is not activated.
I guess the next step is to try and monitor the outputs of the FEM, but how to do that with it plugged in, I don't know.
There's a lot of "I don't know's" in this post!! Gotta laugh or you might cry.

 

With all the horror stories;
Owners having to go over fixing the mistakes themselves.
Made by those paid professionals, is why i do my own work.
Seems that paying to have the parts recovered.
After you remove them, then reinstall yourself.
Being more careful, than the paid professionals are.
Just might be your best bet at this turning out right

 

Good job!
So when you supply 12 volts to the enable wire all windows operate normally from both the drivers door and at each switch?

 

Yes, that's correct. The problem when ALL windows won't operate is that the red Enable wire on each window, is not getting 12V.

The Global Open/Close operates differently and as of now I have not been able to replicate what it does.
I do know that a Global Open will work EVEN if the Enable wire has no voltage. A Global Close however will not.
Each window module has a pin that connects to the Global output on the Front Electronic Module (FEM). But it's only one pin, and if you need to signal 3 states 1 open, 2 close, 3 do nothing on one pin you need more than just +12v or 0v. i.e. perhaps 6V or some pulsed signal or perhaps a combination with the Enable pin.
I tried applying 12v and earth to the pin and nothing had any affect on the window motor.
On my car there is a steady 12v on the Global pin when the ignition switch is in position 1.