Which is why I have no problem confessing to my own dumb moves like this one involving ice, a moving car, and intestinal issues.

For those of you in warmer climates who might not be familiar with the frosty grip of winter let me explain something. Your car can be transformed into a frozen fortress, encased in ice. Your entire car sealed shut like a tomb. This is never as fun as it seems in Frozen.
Your hood, trunk, and doors can freeze shut with ice. Your tires can even freeze to the ground.
On the upside, I've ever once seen a scorpion, poisonous snake or spider around my car.
Car windows often freeze shut. As was the case with my car one February, January, maybe it was even a March morning. I can't remember. All I know is at some point last winter, instead of scraping the ice away or waiting for the car to heat up enough to melt it, I instead chose to manipulate the power window button to break my driver's side window free from its icy prison.
Up, down, up, down, up, down, accompanied by a symphony of mechanical noises, until finally, with a resounding CLUNK, the ice cracked free, and my window eased down. Victory!
I am a winner. The best of the best. I fixed my frozen window faster than ANYBODY else could have.
Since it was winter and there really was no reason for me to have my window open, I put the window back up. Half of it obeyed.
The other half scraped and screeched downward until my driver side window was up on one side, and down on the other.
This is when I realized it would have been smarter to try to fix my stuck window while the car was parked.
NOT WHILE DRIVING.
I performed this entire operation when I was comfortably settled in my car and driving to my destination. To save time you understand.
Only a loser with nothing better to do would try to fix their car while it was PARKED.
That kind of time wasting indulgence is for people who don't need to buy Diet Coke and coffee cream.
Which I don't need to tell you is a very important time sensitive emergency.
Don't worry. I'm not entirely dumb. Once I realized that I fixed my car window by breaking it, I immediately pulled over to the side of the road because it's dangerous to drive while under the influence of regret.
I up-down-up-down-up-downed the window again and it eventually righted itself.
And then I put yellow masking tape over the driver's side window button and didn't open my window again until the weather got better and I could fix it myself.
Yes, I could have taken it to my mechanic to get it fixed but then I'd have to explain about the Diet Coke emergency and why I also only had 1 working headlight.
And no wiper fluid.
I'm not completely irresponsible. I simply chose to only drive in rainstorms during daylight hours last winter - for the most part.
Speaking of wiper fluid.
Did you know you can get wiper fluid in tablet form??!!
I just discovered them last week. They're blue tablets that dissolve in water. You just drop them in your wiper fluid tank, add water and you're done. You can buy a bag of 100 tablets, to make 100 gallons of wiper fluid for $12.
In Canada the wiper fluid tablets are more expensive at $32 for 100 of them.
O.K. back to the regularly scheduled post.
This weekend afforded me the weather to fix all 3 things that needed to get done on my car. Refill the wiper fluid (so easy), replace both of my low beam headlights (ridiculously difficult and rage inducing, thank you so much to the wad of chewing gum that engineered the 2007), and take my car door apart so I could assess the guts.
Reasons for broken electric car window
- Fuse
- Faulty electrical wire
- Burnt out motor
- Window regulator
- Window track is out of alignment
I could eliminate reasons 1-3 because the window had power and the motor was working. That meant it was either the window regulator, whatever the hell that was, or the window was just off its track.


After watching this Youtube video that showed me how to remove the interior panel of my car door and replace the regulator.
The Regulator Sliding Block, which sounds very, very important and expensive, I found out is actually a small square piece of plastic that holds the window arm in place. I first asked my mechanic if he had one to sell me but he did not, so I bought 10 of them on Amazon for $12.
Fixing the window involved removing the interior door panel, shoving the blue thing into a slot, popping the arm back in and putting the door back together.

Total cost, $12. Time to fix, 30 minutes.
Lessons learned?
- I learned how to repair a power window.
- I'd still rather live in a country with winter windows than summer scorpions.
Hmm, every time I click "like" on a comment, a thingy pops up saying, "your comment has been marked as spam," and my vote is deleted. Occasionally that happens when I comment too. What's going on? 😯
(Hmm, it doesn't happen on all of your articles though. Even weirder.)
That is odd. I'm using different software for my comments lately - there must be a glitch. Ill have a look! Thanks for letting me know! ~ karen
I think those blue gizmos are in everything. I remember when I tried to repair my dishwasher (under your influence, no doubt) I found several of those blue things holding together the slides under the glassware tray. Although I was able to replace the little buggers on Amazon, I also found that alligator clips worked just as well. Until they rusted, then they didn’t. So I’m back to that old question - plastic or metal? Or twist ties? They’re good too.
That makes sense. They're probably in slidey things everywhere. ~ karen!
Yup. Did the same thing with my window during one of the worst winter storms in Montreal. Ended up driving to a garage with window wide open in a blizzard. Lesson learned.
According to Amazon:
🍀MULTI-USE Our versatile effervescent tablets are not only suitable for automotive glass,but also practical for kitchen use,tile,window,mirror and so on,it is versatile that removes the kitchen stains and floor stains well.
🍀ADVANCED QUALITY Washer fluid tablets is only about 1.7 cm in diameter, each car effervescent tablet has its own packaging,which is more space-saving and easy to carry compared with the traditional ones,Dissolve thoroughly.
Note: Please be aware that this is a summer formulation,Temperature Requirement > -5℃.
Karen, I was a mere child of twentysomething (I’m 66 now-shh) the first time I pulled a door panel off to fix an electric window. No internet back in the dark ages but somehow I figured out how to get it working again. Took me a trip to a junkyard with my tool box seeking a likely source for that part. YouTube is my go-to source these days for all kinds of problems that crop up but the newer cars are daunting! I wouldn’t dare attempt to pull anything apart from what I’m driving these days. That car window was on a ‘68 Mercury. I’ve rebuilt engines, carburetors and transmissions. I grew up around automotive and airplane mechanics. The modern computerized cars of today are an entirely different beast. It wasn’t until I needed to replace the battery in this “thing” I drive that I realized I could not locate it! First off the engine compartments don’t bear even the slightest resemblance to classics that I grew up around. The battery was nowhere to be found under the hood. I gave up, used my iPhone to google it and found it’s located under a floor panel under a rear seat. If I’d been on a game show, I’d have had to use maybe two of my lifelines and still have lost that round. Imagine the horror of needing to use jumper cables on my car! Just getting to the battery is a nightmare but add to that, the pure horror of attaching the cables to my car and then to the volunteer’s car who would never, ever help me again. I’m super excited to add that I’ve been a long time AAA member and a guy in a truck rescued me. It’s no wonder that every trip to a mechanic is ridiculously expensive. I still bend into a pretzel to get under my sink and will drag a toilet off that ugly wax ring and fix wiring etc… but unless the car is close to my age, forget about it😆
Always enjoy your stories and yes, I’ve done plenty of stupid all on my own❤️