How to fix slipping BMW E30 electric window regulator

The problem is that the regulator gear is slipping at upper or lower position, the motor keeps running and giving a rattling noise, instead of stopping.

There may be other reasons too, but in my case the reason was badly worn spring at the upper position. If the driver's window has this kind of malfunction the reason is very likely at the lower position.

See the pictures. First picture shows the worn spring. In the second picture there is a spring which is not worn. You can clearly see how much the spring material has been lost, so the motor gear won't meet the spring.

Start by removing the motor, undo the four screws, remove the metal plate and remove the motor. The electric window actuator has a limiter for the lower position, the manual version does not have this. This limiter has to be removed in order to do this fix. Just drill the rivets and the limiter can be removed. If you won't mess the limiter, you are able to reinstall it using nuts and bolts.

After removing the limiter, pry off the plastic guide under the window support, which you are going to slide through the curves. It helps sliding the spring out. The guide just splits into two by carefully prying them apart.

Next you can slide the spring out. It needs some force when the window support is going through the curves, but it will eventually slide out. I pushed and pulled it out from the back end. Both directions may be possible, I chose backwards. If you have another spare donor actuator, even a manual version, you can replace the worn spring with a better one. If you don't have, then there is another method.

Put the spring into a vise, tighten properly. Then just using some brute force rotate the window support 180 degrees in relation to the spring. It is a tight fit, but it will rotate. Do this for both window supports (and also the small limiter), rotate them into the same direction, so their distance between each other will remain the same. I don't know if there is a big difference, but doing so you'll be safe. By this method the worn spring section will be on the opposite side of the gear contact location and you will get the unused spring side in contact with the gear. I rotated them 180 degrees, at least 90 degrees may be the minimum.

Then oil the tube and the spring, slide the spring back in, push the plastic guide back together to the window support. Because we removed the lower limiter we need to do something. You may try to reinstall the original limiter, if you want. You can also squeeze the front end of the tube just like the manual version is squeezed. This prevents the spring sliding out when lowering the window. If the electric version is already squeezed, then there is no need to do anything. The removed limiter stops the movement just before the spring meets the tube squeeze. In practice, having the limiter removed, there will be only very small change in the window lower position.

Not a bad task at all!