1998-05 VW Passat Front Driver Side Power Window Regulator TRQ WRA51447

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Hi, I'm Mike Green. I'm one of the owners of 1AAuto. I want to help you save time and money repairing and maintaining your vehicle. I'm going to use my 20-plus years' experience restoring and repairing cars and trucks like this to show you the correct way to install parts from 1AAuto.com. The right parts installed correctly - that's going to save you time and money. Thank you, and enjoy the video.

In this video I'm going to show you how to replace the driver's side power window regulator on this 2001 VW Passat. The regulator is the same for any '98 to '05 Passat, although I believe removing the door panel is different from the '02 to the '05.

The tools you'll need for '98 to '01 are a flat blade screwdriver, Phillips screwdriver, T25 Torx driver, a door panel clip tool or putty knife, a 10 mm socket and ratchet or wrench, a drill with a ¼ inch drill bit, and some painters tape.

You want to start by using a flat blade screwdriver. There's a little inner panel on your door pull. You pry that out right in the middle. Then take it out carefully.

Now use your flat blade screwdriver and pry it in the back. There are clips all around the edge of that panel, so you just kind of pull it up. It takes a firm pull but it comes right out.
And then on the bottom side there is a connector. Just press a tab and pull the connector free.

Where you remove that panel from, there are three Phillips screws that hold the panel to the door. And then underneath there are two T25 screws that hold the panel to the door.

I'm going to fast forward here as I remove those three screws. Be careful not to drop them. You might use a magnet to pull them out of the little caverns they're in. Then remove the screws from down on the bottom.

Now it's unscrewed. Use either a putty knife or a door panel clip tool. Pull the bottom out. Put your knife in; go in until it stops. Give it a pull. Pull it until it stops again. Hold it. Do the same thing for the back side.

Now with those clips released, pull the panel out and then up.

When you disconnect the door handle, pull the door handle out a little bit as you're opening the door. And then push this hook up through. Then it should slide right out.

After your door handle is disconnected, there's a series of harnesses. They all just have little tabs that you push down and pull the connector out. It's hard to video them. The only difference is the courtesy light at the bottom of door has little ears that you need to pry out with a screwdriver and pull them down.

All these different connections have tabs you either push, or the courtesy light you need to pry up on these tabs to pull it out. All these have tabs you have to push.

Here's my new regulator from 1AAuto. You're looking at the inside of the panel. What happens in a lot on these vehicles is this cable breaks. And you know when that happens because it usually makes a popping sound and then you hear a lot of grinding. And then, when you activate your window switch, you can hear a motor running but nothing's happening with the window.

Now on my car here, you can see that my whole assembly is fine. I'm going to show you how to remove the panel, and I'll show you some of what you need to do to switch over to the new regulator. But I am going to reinstall my original because it's still in good shape.

Most likely when you hear that popping or grinding noise, you'll be able to grab onto your window, and you may have to remove this piece of weather strip here. You just pull up. Your window will probably go down and not come back up, but you can easily reach in, grab your window, and pull it up.

What you want to do is pull it up to this level where there's a couple of inches between the top of the window and the frame, and secure it, maybe with some painters tape or something like that.

Once you do that you can come in here and there are two 10 mm bolts; one there and one right behind this over here. Those bolts hold the window to the regulator. So we're going to do two steps here. I'm going to pull out all these clips for the wiring harnesses and disconnect all the harnesses. Then I'm going to either loosen or remove these bolts to free the window.

I'm going to speed up as I pull those clips out. Usually you can kind of pull them to one side, reach back in there, push one of the teeth to the side, pull it out, and then pull the rest of them out without breaking.

On this harness for the window motor, you pull the tab down and the harness pulls off. Now, loosen these two 10 mm bolts. Lift your window up. I'll speed it up here again as I secure that window up with the painters tape.

Now I'm going to remove all the bolts around the edge of the panel. I'll start with this one below the speaker.

I'm going to speed up quite a bit. Those are 10 mm bolts, so I'm using a 10 mm socket with a ratchet extension. Once you have all those bolts out, then you'll want to use a flat blade screwdriver or some type of tool, and you start prying the panel away from the door. It's on there with some adhesive, so you pry with the screwdriver as well as pull with your fingers. You can break it mostly away except for the area up around the door lock knob.

There's two rivets that hold the lock mechanism to the panel. Use a screwdriver to push those through.

Once you push those through, there's a clip for this wire harness. Just squeeze the little tabs on it, and push that through as well. You can take your door harness, push it through the hole, and lift your panel up. Get those out of the way. Bring it up over your door lock and down.

Right in here is a harness connection. Put your flat blade screwdriver there should be a tab right here that you push down on with your screwdriver. And then you can pull; while you are pushing down with that screwdriver, you can pull this connector right off.

Once you get it off, pull this connector through, and make sure you feed your inside door handle cable through and bring it out.

Now you're going to want to switch your window motor from your old to your new. There's three T25 Torx screws. Remove those.

With the new one, you want to take your motor. Here's your speaker hole and your motor faces up and away. You can lay it in there like that.

This is obviously clipped together, so you want to cut this. Hold this gear in here and then cut the wire tie. Flip that right over. Put your motor up in place.
I'll speed up here again as I start those three screws and then tighten them up nice and firm. You want to make sure that that gear does not come out with the wires around it, because it's very hard to get back together.

So there's your motor switched over. I am going to reuse my old one because there's nothing wrong with it. But I do want to show you how to remove the speaker.

Take a nice, skinny punch here and knock the center of the rivet right out. Now you want to take the drill with a ¼ inch drill bit and slowly drill this rivet out. The rivet comes off.
You can take your speaker and pry it off the rivet head. Repeat that for all four, and take the speaker off.

You can see I didn't take off my speaker because, again, I am going to reuse my original plate. But you would want to bolt the speaker back together with a small bolt. Four of them, obviously. We'll speed up here as I put that nut and bolt in.

After you have got the speaker set, you would want to change over all your other plugs. These kind of pull right out. Then reinstall on your new panel all these clips. Reach in the back. They are held in by little ears. Squeeze them on the back side. They'll will come out. Then reinstall.

To reinstall the window assembly, first you want to put your door lock up through there. And then you have to put the bottom of the regulator in.

You want to reach in behind and put your door latch cable on the other side of the regulator and pull it through and then out through there.

Pull your harness out. Put this through. Reach up in. Reconnect your door lock. Reconnect and put this clip in place here. And this here.
Now put your handle in place. Start with one of the bolts up here.

Reach in here and push this back into place. What I'm doing is using my finger to pull the door lock assembly, the rivets, back onto the metal door panel.

I'm going to speed it up here as I put the harnesses back together. I reconnect the power window motor and put most of the harnesses back in their places.

Now I'll keep the fast forward going as I thread in the bolts that hold the panel in place, and then tighten them up. When you tighten them up, you want to tighten them up firm. They don't have to be incredibly tight, though.

So I've got my key on and my window switch plugged in. You can see that my window regulator is in the right position. When you first put it in, maybe it's not in the right position. What you want to do is kind of move it up so you can get to everything really nice and easy.

Now take your tape off your window. Carefully slide it down into place and make sure it's seated right in there well.
Then tighten these two bolts. Put this plug back. And put this plug back. Make sure this plug is through here.

Do a quick test now. Move it down and then back up. It looks good. Now we can put out door panel back.

The locks and these are just like this. You can see in here pretty well. It has to be in the right spot. That one goes to the light.

Turn it up. Make sure that goes up to the rear. Pull it through.

Connect this there and this here. And then put your door cable in. Put the hook into the door handle. Then pull it back. Push it back into place. Push your panel closer. Put your lock up through.

Again, make sure you have your power window and lock harness. Push your panel and lock the top off. Okay, speed it up substantially.

Pop all your clips back into the door. Then put the two lower screws back in. I found it easiest to get right down there so you can see how you put them in. Then put your three Phillips screws in that hold the middle of the panel.

Put our window switch down in place and make sure you lock it in there well.

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