Expert: John Kingery - 1/2/2008

Question
QUESTION: just recently, the electric windows stopped working. at the same time interior lights flash like a blinker but not consistently -same with trunk lights.

ANSWER: There's a circuit breaker reset button on the lower dash for the power windows.  Check that first.

Next, is your battery good and connections clean?  BMW's do some mighty odd things with weak batterys.

There are micro switches at the doors and trunk.  If one of these is bad, the car will think the door or trunk is open, and turn the lights on.  Do any of your doors latch poorly or inconsistantly?  Trunk is probably the most common one.  Disconnect the wiring going to the switch and see what happens.

Long shot, but worth it:  Check the wiring along the trunk hinge for an intermittent open or short.  The wiring flexes more here than anywhere on the car.

let me know what you find.



---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Interior lights do go off with door closed, but when on by door switch or overhead switches they flash on and off.  Haven't checked battery voltage but starter runs strong.  More worried about not being able to close the windows.  It's getting cold here!

Answer
Since all your windows won't work, it's something upstream, common to all the windows.

First, did you check the circuit breaker reset I mentioned?  

Next, there is a "comfort relay", that I believe is mounted behind the glove box.  This is a common failure location.