hola

backgroung: for a long time my driver side rear window worked off and on. No weird noises, it just would go up/down smooth or not at all. Then last weekend my drivers side front window started making horrible noises and wouldnt go up/down without wiggling the window.

today: Went to the dealer, got a front drivers window regulator (surprisingly 250 with cca discount) and some door clips and went at it. Used e38.org instructions (although all writeups are for rear). Got the door panel off, struggled a lil figuring out the sliding connector on the master window switch (marked it up a bit with the screwdriver) but got it all off then unpluggd the negative from the battery and disconnected the side airbag. Took off the foam with the nasty weather sealing material.

weirdness: reconnected the switch, and although everything for the passenger side worked (windows, rear mirror), nothing on the driver side worked (windows, rear mirror) and when I pushed the button for the driver side front window the unit would CLICK. I opened up the switch unit and cleaned it with contact cleaner. Reinstalled, no dice. Thinking that my switch unit had gone bad, I thought I would go to the yard tomorrow morning and get a used one. however, i went down to the garage tonight and looked at some fuses - all that i looked at looked fine (8,29,31 in engine bay fuse box). weirder though, the front door would not unlock. The lock by the window would go up but the door would not open. from the inside i pulled on the latch that connects to the interior door handle and no dice. When i held down the unlock button on the remote, all the windows/sunroof went down except the rear driver side, which never moved, and sometimes the driver side front window would start to go down and get stuck. when i held the key in the lock position everything would close, sometimes including the front driver side window, although it would need to be wiggled and made the horrible noise.

guys I am freakin out. Should i go get a switch? How am i going to get the door open? Why is the door not opening? I know I have atleast one bad window regulator but the rest of this makes no sense to me.

This may or may not be an option for ya but seeing that you dropped $250 on a window reg it may be. You can pick up an entire working door from a salvage yard for about $400. Gut it keep or sell the airbag and replace the parts you need to make it work. Hell over here I can get a whole 740 for about $4k, running but smashed somewhere. Remember salvage yards are your friend :D .