Power Sliding Door Adjustment

Well, the title says it all.

I can not find details on adjusting the stops/sliders/ apparatus in this power sliding door mechanisms in the Haynes manual.

Has anyone ever had to re-align or adjust these things? mine is not latching properly at the rear securing point 100% of the time.


Any advice would be welcome.

Oh, by the way, This has been a valuable forum for my Windstar and myself. I do think that I would have driven this thing off a cliff had I not found this group of dedicated, hardheaded Windstar owners. I'm an in good company.

I have a 2000 SEL I bought new. The slider was not latching on the passengers door. I took it to the dealer on several occassions and they could never fix it.
I got my wrenches out and fixed it myself in less than 10 minutes. With the door open, you need to loosen the three bolts that hold the rear of the door onto the arm. You need to figure out if it is striking high or low and gently move the door in the right direction a little bit at a time. Tighten the bolts and see if it closes. There is quite a bit of room to move the doors. The big secret is to loosen the bolts enough that you can barely move the door. If you loosen it up too much then the door will "drop" from the weight.

so2315, thank you for your reply on the power sliding door problem fix. I have 2000 SEL as well and my problem is that the passenger door closes all the way then it pops back out about 1/4 inch and triggers "Passenger door ajar" annunciation. I had to mannually push the door in from outside to close it completely. Can my problem be fixed by what you did to yours or is this something more complicated?

Wa Jang,
The problem you describe is exactly the problem I had. These doors are sensitive and the safety "no crush" feature is designed to re open the door at any slight resistance. If the door is not aligned with the latch in the rear of the door, the door will try to force it onto the latch. The sensors detect an obstruction and reopen the door.
Doesn't cost anything to get the wrenches out and try it. You should be able to see in the paint or dust where it was originally. Just don't forget to loosen them up just enough to have to push it to move it. You don't want to loosen it up so much that the door drops down.

I will take your word and try this out myself. I will report it back my results.

I spent a good two hrs adjusting and readjusting but no avail. I gave up on fixing this door.

Wa jang chang

so2315, thank you for your reply on the power sliding door problem fix. I have 2000 SEL as well and my problem is that the passenger door closes all the way then it pops back out about 1/4 inch and triggers "Passenger door ajar" annunciation. I had to mannually push the door in from outside to close it completely. Can my problem be fixed by what you did to yours or is this something more complicated?

Wa jang chang, don't give up. Yesterday I had the exact same thing on our 2001 Windstar. Right side sliding door would electrically close then pop back about 1/4 inch and the door ajar light would come on. Cleaning the contacts did not help. Then my son and I looked at the bottom track area and he found a plastic spoon and then a nylon sock hidden in the rear of the bottom track! Just a little piece of cloth showing but pulling on it and out came a foot long sock. Seems the sock was preventing the door from staying latched and springing the door back a little. Sliding door works great again! Nice to have 29 year old eyes to help a grandfather find a black sock in a dark place!

When adjusting a sliding door, I recommend you also remove the rear inner trim panel so that you can see/adjust the cable drive mechanism.

Working on these doors reminds me of putting up a tent single handed... I forget, from one time to the next, the "easy way" to do something.

I have a 2001 that the door wouldnt stay latched. I adjusted the bracket on the rear of the sliding door and it took care of the problem. The bracket has large square holes in it for adjustement. Just remember a little adjustment goes a long way.

I should have added that when adjusting the bracket moving it up and down will adjust how it hits the striker veritically. Moving the bracket front to back adjusts how far in the cable will go in to the power unit. If the cable doesn't go in far enough it will think that there is an obstruction in the door and it will reopen.

Working on these doors reminds me of putting up a tent single handed... I forget, from one time to the next, the "easy way" to do something.

My Windstar does NOT have power sliding doors, but I was having similar problems: Dome lights flashing, door ajar light flashing, warning chime, auto-locks on doors clacking...

At the rear of the door there is a switch. When the door pops open slightly and the switch is wearing out the problems occur.

I taped two pennies to the inside of the door where it contacts the switch... (One may be enough)

Problems solved!

'99 Windstar... 150,000+ miles... (100K by me)... 12+ years... LOTS of repairs... Still driving it!