Fail
 

Today was a Fail day.

Attempted to replace the driver's side handle carrier. First time ever attempting this (first time removing door panel actually).

2 hours later all I had accomplished was getting the door panel off and discovering a ripped vapor barrier (from the previous owner).

Put it all back together and now 3 of the 4 windows and the passenger side mirror will not respond to the switch panel. Removed the switch panel and reinstalled the connectors multiple times. No luck. Only had about a half-day to work on this so had to stop here.

End result: Door Carrier still broken, Window controls broken, side mirror control broken, multiple clips broken.

Ugh.

What did you do to / for your E53 today??
 

All those things go though the driver window switch assembly. Symptoms suggest one of the plugs is not seated completely. Since you already tried re-plugging, maybe damaged plug or socket. Check all the pins and sockets.

The vapor barrier was missing so obvs somebody was in there before me. I'll pull the panel off again when I get home from this month+ road trip. I unbolted the airbag but did not disconnect the wiring as I did not disconnect the battery because I needed to raise/lower the window to get the door latch cable connected.

If I push the lock button down it pops right back up. But now that I think about it maybe it hasn't really worked in the first place, because more than once I forgot to unlock the car and was able to open the driver door which triggered the alarm.

The rear door DLA doesn't work either; I can hear the actuator clunking, but no locking. Been like that since I got it, grabbed one off a junked E53 but odds of it working are not great. I know you posted awhile back about tearing it apart and replacing the little motors, but I haven't pursued that yet.

Ugh indeed. About half the door panel clips broke when I removed it. The others that survived kept falling out of the retainers when I went to put it back on.

As for the switch box, I found the bigger connector to be kind of a bitch to remove, but it all worked afterwards, so maybe you pulled a wire out of place?

Sorry to hear, but a necessary part of becoming a battle-tested E53 owner...Soon enough you'll be able to remove a door panel in 2 minutes in the dark.. 3 minutes if its a rear door with the optional sun shade in the door.:p:

Replace the vapor barrier..unfortunately they are pricey...maybe you can find a used one, but the E53 vapor barriers are much thinner (poor quality) than E39 or E46

a bag of extra door clips are a good thing to have on hand as is some Butyl.
And be prepared to glue the black plastic that separates from the door with RTV - I use Ultra Black Gasket maker

The plug was missing the handle thing that gets rotated to lock it into place. I'm guessing that is the issue (broken by same person who destroyed the vapor barrier I'm guessing). It has worked for years w/o it, so I had my fingers crossed. I'll try some DeoxIT on the connectors...

If the harness plug is the issue, is a replacement of that section of the wire harness the easiest answer? Swapping a new plug on seems…ambitious.

Actually, the connector's outer shell and retention mechanism is a separate part from the section with the wiring and pins etc. - it's it only the outer shell that is damaged/broken, you can easily swap in a new one or one from a donor car.

Yeah, $58+ for that barrier from a couple BMW dealers which is cheaper than any other source I found. How critical is it? I don't have any water leaks, and the car sat through a torrential storm over the weekend.

Found a bag of 50 door panel clips for $7 on the hamazon.

To which "black plastic" part are you referring with the RTV? The vapor barrier?

The door card itself is made of several parts and the upper plastic panel is glued to the lower section. This joint can fail when removing the door card. You can use MasterGasket Black to bond the door card parts back togther.

$58 is cheaper than I thought...It's $74 at FCP Euro...

Yes as mentioned, the hard black plastic pieces on the inside of the door panel that hold clips and otherwise secure the panel to the door at the top...The glue from the factory fails and the black plastic comes off...almost every time I remove a panel.....

I use gasket maker and clamp the black panel to the door panel overnight.