Rear window slow-Clean the seal!

[coltm4]

Been having issues with the rear window going back up. It was slow and eventually refused to go up more than 8" without stopping or needing someone to help push the window up. I cleaned and lubed the side tracks with wet towel and silicone lube and that seemed to help it. Now the window went up slowly but at least it closed. That is the conventional advice which I thought was odd. It seems to me the most friction would come from the bottom seal. Again I used a wet towel and started to clean. IT WAS FILTHY. So filthy that I decided to use a hose and then a lab squirt bottle to try and both mechanically agitate the dirt off and wash it off. This of course begged the next obvious question, if the track is that dirty, how dirty is inside the door? Also filthy. I pulled the handles out of the door edge and rinsed the dirt out. I think I need to get a "bottle" type brush to agitate the dirt at the bottom of the door and hose it out.

None of this in hind sight is surprising, I drive down a lot of dusty dirt roads, Moab, etc... Rear window is always covered in dust. Sanitation, your windows working reliably counts on this.

 

[Humble Leader]

cleaning the tracks will help. more often than not this is temporary because the motor and/or regulator is starting to fail. this is especially true if you notice worse performance in cold temperatures.

if you're talking about the bottom of the liftgate where the grab handles are ya it helps to pop those out and try and vacuum out the dirt in the bottom there. I sprayed in some fluid film there this past summer as well

 

[coltm4]

cleaning the tracks will help. more often than not this is temporary because the motor and/or regulator is starting to fail. this is especially true if you notice worse performance in cold temperatures.

if you're talking about the bottom of the liftgate where the grab handles are ya it helps to pop those out and try and vacuum out the dirt in the bottom there. I sprayed in some fluid film there this past summer as well

I hope the motor/window regulator is fine, its almost as good as new now that I have cleaned the bottom seal.

 

[coltm4]

cleaning the tracks will help. more often than not this is temporary because the motor and/or regulator is starting to fail. this is especially true if you notice worse performance in cold temperatures.

if you're talking about the bottom of the liftgate where the grab handles are ya it helps to pop those out and try and vacuum out the dirt in the bottom there. I sprayed in some fluid film there this past summer as well

I hope the motor/window regulator is fine, its almost as good as new now that I have cleaned the bottom seal. Wouldnt fluid film attract dust and make for a mess?

 

[Humble Leader]

I hope the motor/window regulator is fine, its almost as good as new now that I have cleaned the bottom seal. Wouldnt fluid film attract dust and make for a mess?

I sprayed fluid film along the bottom of the liftgate on the inside, to prevent (or at least try to) water that gets in the tailgate via the window from rusting out the bottom of the tailgate. there are drain holes there, I sprayed a thin layer near the bottom to try and repel any moisture. I had the grab handles off so I figured why not. I didn't spray it up into all the components. I did the same with my doors and actually sprayed the bottom of the inside of the door along the pinch welds. fluid film does attract dust but it doesn't dry. the bottom of my doors have this oily dusty protective coating. looks dirty as hell but after 11 years no rust

hopefully yours is fixed, it very well could be. I had to replace my motor and regulator early 2023 because my window was being difficult in cold weather. on really cold days, well below zero, sometimes it would get stuck and I'd have to inch it up

 

[2chains]

^^Thanks for posting this. Looking into fluid film. Long time T4R owner but new to me 2013 Limited has dime sized bubbling paint near license plate bolts. UUgh. Looking to take apart hatch and do some mitigation of the common tailgate rust. Wasn't sure if FF was the way to go as I don't want to attach dirt and dust inside.