Window Regulator URO.... [emoji1751]

[Jason5driver]

im living on the edge, i have a uro radiator cap

lol !

[URO Parts]

Our engineers finished their investigation of Yonkers320is's feedback for the E39 regulator, and found some interference between the slider and the end of the track at one end, due to the little corner of the track being bent down about 0.010". That's all it takes to catch on the slider though. We're correcting the angle of the corner on all current inventory to eliminate the interference, have made the correction on the production line, and our QC department has the issue flagged so they'll be keeping an eye on it.

Thanks for your report, Yonkers320is!

[AusE39er]

Well it's nice they followed up.

Cn90. What is the Siemens vdo part number for front right regulator?

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Oopsz I mean cnn

[kouks]

I replaced the rear driver side regulator with the Autozone Dorman brand. Failed in 10 months, but it has a limited lifetime warrantee so I'm getting a free one.

The rear passenger side is a URO, still working fine. Replaced same time as the Autozone. Can't remember why I got two different brands.

I also do not have a high opinion of URO items, but you got to give them credit where it counts.

Didn't use OE BMW due to $$$$$$$$$$$$. And in reality, just because OE is $$$$$$$$$$ doesn't mean it's waaaaayyyyy better.

[blarf]

Our engineers finished their investigation of Yonkers320is's feedback for the E39 regulator, and found some interference between the slider and the end of the track at one end, due to the little corner of the track being bent down about 0.010". That's all it takes to catch on the slider though. We're correcting the angle of the corner on all current inventory to eliminate the interference, have made the correction on the production line, and our QC department has the issue flagged so they'll be keeping an eye on it.

Thanks for your report, Yonkers320is!

Shouldn't this be the thing that your team with all their fancy equipment checks before they sell the product to consumers?

[URO Parts]

^ They certainly do when developing a product, but it's not realistic to scan all production pieces. Sometimes a tiny intermittent error (not even visible to the eye) can happen during production, and you won't know about it until someone gets a part with the defect, and sends us an email or PM.

[sienayr]

It's because Amazon has a problem with counterfeit items in part due to commingling inventory, paid reviews, and bait-and-switch listings. I bought a set of Astro Pneumatic trim tools recently, and if you go to the Astro site they'll link to an Amazon listing… for something else. Another vendor hijacked the listing. That cheap Chinese trinket with five star reviews? Check the dates on those reviews. The five star ones are probably old and for a different product. Plus if you're shopping for oil, Shell explicitly excludes Amazon from their rebates.

That AK-90 on Amazon (yeah, okay there are a bunch), that's a cheap Chinese knockoff of a cheap Chinese knockoff. lol

This. Same with fleaBay. I don't buy any suspension or engine related parts from either of those sites for this exact reason. Not that other parts distributors are immune to counterfeit parts, but it seems to be a much bigger issue on sites that aren't direct distributors of auto parts.

[URO Parts]

Indeed, definitely avoid "name brand" batteries, memory cards, and other low-buck commodity items from 3rd party sellers on Amazon. If you're okay with buying counterfeits, those items are a whole lot cheaper on eBay.

[OnTheFence]

periodically lube the glass/rubber contact areas with a wipe of Honda Shin Etsu grease (which is also great for squeaky door seals)..

URO,
Great support. I have seen my windows violently jerk open when the glass sticks to the rubber seal.
I can totally see how this can break a reg (the bowden pill cracks the plastic housing)

The Honda stuff is just silicone grease, which is also just called dielectric grease.
Can I just use dielectric on the weather stripping? Won't it smear all over the inside of the glass ?

[URO Parts]

Shin Etsu could very well be dielectric grease, but we haven't tried anything else after seeing the test results from someone on a popular car forum. The forum member tried a wide variety of seal treatments & lubes, and Shin Etsu worked the best and lasted the longest before needing to be refreshed.

It only takes a super thin film of Shin Etsu to make a difference. We used a cotton rag and worked a bit of grease into an small area of fibers, then rubbed that area of the rag on the seals, then wiped off any excess residue with the clean part of the rag. It hardly looks like you did anything to the seal, but you can feel the film. If grease is applied directly to the seal, it'll be too much in one spot and harder to spread out evenly.

Doing this works a bit of lube into the tiny pores in the rubber, but there's not enough grease sitting on the surface of the rubber to make a mess on the glass. Shin Etsu also works well if you have door seals that squeak when you hit bumps in the road.

[Mike WW]

Interesting on lubing the window seals. Any thoughts on silicone spray or a dry Teflon spray?

[URO Parts]

^ Pretty sure the forum member tested silicone spray and dry lubes (such as Teflon), and didn't have much success with them.

[MotorMouth93]

Theres more than one flavor of silicone grease and not all of them are created equal. Shin Etsu grease is excellent for conditioning and protecting rubber seals, in the NSX world its the defacto method of keeping the targa and door seals in good condition and avoiding the $1000+ parts price tag of replacing them.

[BimmrMeUpSnotty]

I’ve never had the sticky glass to seal issues, even though I have had the many multiple window regulator issues, never have had to lube my window gaskets, how about the dry mountain bike chain lube? I used a ton of it on my chains, it went on wet, stayed wet for about 3 seconds, dried up, wiped the chain clean with a rag, and the chain stayed lubed, and clean.

[Jason5driver]

There’s felt in the inside gasket to help the glass slide .
Over time , the felt rubs away .

[BimmerBreaker]

Theres more than one flavor of silicone grease and not all of them are created equal. Shin Etsu grease is excellent for conditioning and protecting rubber seals, in the NSX world its the defacto method of keeping the targa and door seals in good condition and avoiding the $1000+ parts price tag of replacing them.

I use Gummi Pfledge to grease the window tracks - it is designed to clean and condition rubber seals as well and has always worked well for me to keep windows moving freely. Interesting to hear that Shin Etsu is designed for the same purpose...

For the record, I will only use Uro HD/Premium window regulators in E39's. I also am constantly impressed by the fact that Uro posts on the forums to gain customer feedback directly to actively improve their designs. I don't know of ANY other parts company that does that... you don't see Febi or Lemforder representatives posting on here...

[Jason5driver]

I use Gummi Pfledge to grease the window tracks - it is designed to clean and condition rubber seals as well and has always worked well for me to keep windows moving freely. Interesting to hear that Shin Etsu is designed for the same purpose...

For the record, I will only use Uro HD/Premium window regulators in E39's. I also am constantly impressed by the fact that Uro posts on the forums to gain customer feedback directly to actively improve their designs. I don't know of ANY other parts company that does that... you don't see Febi or Lemforder representatives posting on here...

+1 , totally agree .

[blarf]

you don't see Febi or Lemforder representatives posting on here...

Why would they? An original equipment manufacturer is already going to be working with BMW to create parts that work. It's cheaper for a company making low quality knockoffs to check in on forums to see where the problems are then to do hire people to do actual quality control.

[ross1]

Why would they? An original equipment manufacturer is already going to be working with BMW to create parts that work. It's cheaper for a company making low quality knockoffs to check in on forums to see where the problems are then to do hire people to do actual quality control.

I couldn't agree more.
Uro's ( a sponsor of this site) postings amount to attempts at damage control or putting out yet another flaming.
Quality manufacturers have no need for this sort of thing as QC is done at the factory before the product is shipped.

[BimmerBreaker]

Why would they? An original equipment manufacturer is already going to be working with BMW to create parts that work. It's cheaper for a company making low quality knockoffs to check in on forums to see where the problems are then to do hire people to do actual quality control.

That's kind of an odd statement, given how many OEM suppliers ship defective parts, end up out sourcing to China where quality plummets, or just keep reproducing faulty original designs. OEM =/= OE and I don't know that BMW is doing a lot of R&D to improve parts on 20 year old cars - some of which were faulty designs initially, like the window regulators. If they weren't faulty designs they wouldn't fail so much to begin with and necessitate designing upgraded versions of said parts

What BMW does when they realize their E39 window regulators were faulty for example is not actively seek out how to improve that design - the cost of new tooling and R&D to them is not worth it for the slight improvements they might see in reliability on cars that are now well out of warranty. They have bigger fish to fry. They study how it failed and work to improve that part on the next generation of vehicles but that's where their interest in our old failed parts ends

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I couldn't agree more.
Uro's ( a sponsor of this site) postings amount to attempts at damage control or putting out yet another flaming.
Quality manufacturers have no need for this sort of thing as QC is done at the factory before the product is shipped.

Isn't there an active thread right now about someone who bought an OEM expansion tank and it just didn't ever work properly?

You guys can buy whatever you want. My E39 has Uro window regulators in it and they have been trouble free since installing them years ago. If BMW was perfect at designing these parts, you wouldn't need to replace them to begin with.

Historically many forum sponsors simply want the moderation team to delete negative posts about them. That is not how you properly run a business though and this has caused issues on many forums in which the moderation team participates in this behavior. It erodes the trust of the forum itself, as you no longer know if the information is biased or not. Uro isn't doing that, they take responsibility for what failed and asked, out in the open, about how it failed, and shared how they are improving the design. I'm honestly not sure what else they could do here. Do you want them to install and test every single part before it goes out the door? They make various other improved parts for our cars, such as the improved valley pan gasket design for M62 and quite a few improved parts for N62's...

[BimmrMeUpSnotty]

Whoa…… Dude, I got my original 530 sport brand new, back new in 2001, the drivers regulator finally crap’d out after 145,000 miles. The front passenger regulator started making noise 2years later, at 179,000 miles, but still worked. Then it was a string of crappy problems with crappy regulators because I didn’t feel like spending the coin BMW was asking for the replacement regs. And I am still dealing with that clusterfvck of ill thinking when it comes to buying the factory part. On my green wagon, it is getting a complete paint job right now, that car has three bad regulators on it, but the drivers regulator is from BMW, the others were aftermarket crap, so it figures that they are all broke. But I found a super clean 540 sport at a local pick and pull yard, ten miles from my house, tested every window, and they all worked, so I snagged them all, and they have BMW stampings on all of them. Got a whole ton of good clean parts, including clean sport seats and a super clean sport steering wheel too.

[OnTheFence]

Whoa…… Dude, I got my original 530 sport brand new, back new in 2001, .

You're still here? I thought you were dead. Did you used to have another user name before Snotty ? Are you Bimmerfiver?

[BimmrMeUpSnotty]

You're still here? I thought you were dead. Did you used to have another user name before Snotty ? Are you Bimmerfiver?

No clue what you’re talking about, on that one. But I do remember you being pissed at me for some posts of mine that obviously pissed you off some in the past. It’s cool though, not keeping a grudge, hope you feel the same way.