Need some help.. Window switch caught fire.

My truck is getting a frame replacement and right now I'm in the "waiting" period. I'm not driving it right now so every weekend I start the truck and let it run for a bit. A few weeks ago I started having a dead battery and I would have to jump it off. I always made sure the key was out of the ignition and everything was turned off. Today when I went to crank it, the battery was dead so I hooked a battery charger to it and immediately I started smelling something burning. The charger is kinda old so I just assumed it was that and I unhooked it and tried smelling it and tested it on another battery and it was fine. So I hook it back up and all of the sudden my driver side window had rolled down and smoke was pouring out of the cab!! Unhooked everything and eventually found it was my window switch. The plug is burnt and the switch is burned up pretty bad. Anyone know why this could've happened? Shouldn't it have blown a fuse before this?

It's a 03 xtracab. Anyone had this issue?

 

chinese parts?

 

I can tell you one thing is for sure......your going to need a new window switch.

 

Makes me happy I have manual crank wind-up windows.

 

Nah, it was the original switch.

 

For sure, I just don't want to buy one and it burn up as soon as I plug it in

 

You could take the switch apart to see if something inside grounded out.

 

What is crazy is the button that burned up is the passenger side. Which tells me that something in the switch came loose. Take it apart.

 

Did you hook up the charger backwards?

 

I have a 2005 Tacoma TRD Off Road, my switch did the exact same thing, im driving down the road next thing i start smelling burnt plastic i look around, smoke pouring out of the driver side power window switch, fuse never popped, im thinking the fuse didnt pop because it was getting sufficient power and not too much power, but i assume the circuit board/ switch being almost 20 years old failed with the chinese soldering caught on fire itself, just because i know a lot of the older honda accords their circuits boards with that crap solder they start to not work and cause those cars not to start. you can buy a switch but the harness or female connector f, is not going to be easy i ordered one from Toyota parts dealership and they immediately refunded my money stating its on backorder but you can only buy from alibaba, so i had to have one specially ordered cost me $80, i just checked all fuses and relays in the truck and dont have any accessories and still having parasitic battery draw and continue to have to jump it off, does anyone know or has dealt with this have any information please let us know!

 

Most likely no but if said yes?

 

Just a guess but it looks like the battery voltage was attempting to flow through that switch to complete the circuit .

Perhaps get the cables on wrong it is a easy mistake to make??

Be glad the Fire department did not need to visit.

I would love to figure this out in person.

 

Toyota had a recall on window switches (not on 1st gen.) The failure was similar to that. The cause was the window switch would stick partially and keep applying power to the motor in either the full up or full down position. This caused excessive current draw and would melt the switch. The recall procedure had us checking the switch for any type of binding, verify that there was no continuity when in the rest position and adding a thermal grease to the switch contacts. I had a few that had melted due to partially sticking. The burn pattern looked just like that. The recall designation was C0M. Given the amount of dirt on that switch, I would suspect that it might have been binding.