Time to wind down

A breath of fresh air for the Definitely Motoring fleet car...

WHAT does everyone do when driving their car in the Summer? Get the window(s) fully opened. To keep cool behind the wheel, and enjoy the breeze on the move. Oh and wearing a pair of sunglasses! The joy of summertime driving.

Unfortunately, with the weather being glorious recently – even though it's the beginning of May. I've had to put up with practically driving a greenhouse, because the electric window on the driver's door of my Ford Focus wasn't working.

Despite opening the windows on the nearside front door, and on the other one on the rear offside. It wasn't as effective in keeping me cool behind the wheel. Furthermore, the air con was needed to be on at full whack.

It got to a point that it made me hate driving the car on sunny days. Knowing too well I'd end up hot, sticky and sweaty from my commutes to work before I even started my shifts. Urrgh!

Oh, and then there's the awkward moments at Starbucks or McDonald's drive-thrus. Getting in out and out of multi storey car parks which required putting a chip or a ticket to get past the barriers. Which means you'll have to open the door. If you have a queue of cars behind you, that's goodbye to dignity – of any that you had any left.

The window hasn't been working since the end of last year. With Winter pretty much round the corner at that time. It would be a niggle I could live with for the time being. No one really needs to put the windows down at that time of year.

I previously attempted to fix the window at college. Which I started on diagnosing the problem. As with most cars that have electric windows. When they go wrong, it is usually at least one of these components at fault, making the window not to go up and down. So it could be: blown fuses, a broken switch, a faulty electric motor, or a broken regulator.

The fuses were fine. The switch was working based on the reading I got from the voltmeter. So it turned out that the motor and the regulator wasn't working – and they needed replacing. Which made for being a time consuming job ahead of me.

Come pay day and not saving up this month, I decided to spend some money at my disposal for a garage to fix that god damn window. Now it's fixed, I can roll down, enjoy the breeze behind the wheel on a warm Summer's day. Absolute bliss.