Low-temperature drive characteristics of automotive power window systems

Abstract It is a common experience that some automotive power windows tend to be sluggish during cold weather. The drive current of the power window system increases sharply with decreasing temperature and the ascending speed of the power window glass is greatly reduced. There are several possible sources of such phenomena: performance characteristics of the geared motor, hardening of the glass run and internal friction of the cable and pulley type regulator. Experiments have been performed to study the contributions from each source. It is shown that the major contribution comes from the internal friction of the regulator. Suggestions are made regarding the improvement of power window performance at low temperature.