All,

I have a 1998, V70, base model with 196k miles on it.

Yesterday my son came home from community college and said that he could not get the windows to go up. He also told me that Tuesday night on his way home from work that they would not go down. He only got them to go down on his way home from community college, or I should say before he left college to come home.

So here is what I've done.

I've checked fuse/relay 37. It works at least to the best of my knowledge and I'll explain more later. Fuse 29 I believe for the power rear view mirrors is intact as well.

I removed the drivers side master switch and took it apart. Upon removal it was noted that the passengers side rear window switch was none functional, meaning the switch could not be depressed, put pulling up on the switch at least moved.

I took the switch completely apart and cleaned all the contact with rubber alcohol. Before assembling the switch, I connected it completely to its wiring harness and my son turned the key to the on position (II) and low and behold all the windows returned to their up position. On a side note, is that a unknown feature of the power windows?

So at least the windows are now up. I then proceeded to put the switch completely back together. Then I reinstalled it into the car with its wiring harness intact. The windows would not function. So here is what I mean about fuse/relay 37. While the switch was in I noticed that this relay had gotten extremely hot, like 3rd degree burns hot if you touch it. I pulled it out and the master switch. I then again disassembled the switch in hopes that I could find the short as this kind of heat only gets generated by a short right, or at least that is what my experience tells me.

I then reinstalled just the lower half of the master switch with out the buttons. Again nothing worked and the relay got hot once again.

So I'm trying to track this gremlin down. I'm currently digging into the wiring diagram and have determine that windows and power mirrors appear to run off of fuse/relay 37 & relay J105, and it appears that some how they are connected together in the drivers side master switch, though I could be wrong here.

So my question(s) are this:
1. Is this fix as simple as replacing the switch with a working one?
2. How is the fuel door locking mechanism related to this as I can find nothing in the wiring diagrams describing this.

Please, Please, any and all help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Matt