My first one took almost two hours. The second one only took 30 min. It was on the other door. Hopefully I'm done for a couple years doing it. I got both of them from bmwmercedesparts.com for about $77 each. They were original. Good point on aftermarket though. My driver side is about 10 month old now and passenger is about 6 months old. Still going strong.

turnermotorsports.com i got mine for $90 shipped oem. ebay aftermarket $50ish

What a great DIY thread. Thanks much. Replaced the carrier, although it took me a good 2 hours. I work pretty slow b/c I know that I'm not that great at this stuff, but at least I can get in the car from the drivers door now! Here's the broken carrier:

Did mine last summer...seems to be a very common defect...

mine broke in the same spot. nexy one i do, im loading that spot with jb weld.

If... When you do have another one break, would you post a picture of where you used the weld and what it looks like afterwards. Will or did it affect the way the carrier worked?
Thank you.

they all brake there, i was fed up when my drivers side quit shortly after replacing the passengers side, so i fixed it, JB weld will not hold that is for sure, but some heavy gauge piano wire will.

using a vise, pliers and a zip zip i was able to rebuild. (or i should say reassemble it to what should be its shape replacing the broken piece there with a zip tie. its tough to keep the spring where it should be, but then i used the piano wire and tightened it some, removed the zip tie, then tightened it some more. sounds like a crap fix, but i was leaving to go on vacation the next morning and needed to fix it. it's been almost a year i'd say and all is well. i was going to repair the correct way but decided not to after it held up so well.

i wrapped the piano wire behind the metal rod where the spring is, and through the opening under the piece there that is broken, not just behind the broken piece.

I just replaced my driver's side carrier today. Now I am having a bit of a strange problem: The window works, but there is no one-touch feature to make it roll down. The one touch feature works to roll it up. Also, The drivers side door doesn't unlock automatically, only locks. Lastly, the normal "beep beep" with the lock/unlock of the key fob no longer happens.

Unbelievably frustrating. Any ideas??

:banghead:

Yes, strange stuff happened to me too. I simply unplugged the power to the window/lock box and plugged it in again in a different order. I can't remember what order I plugged the wires back in but after the third time I plugged the unit back in, everything worked. Like a reset.

me too. my passenger door lock didnt work when i tested it with the door panel off. but once i put everything together it all worked fine. weird electrical. maybe try a battery disconnect? i cant see anything you did hurting anything