4 Wheel Drive/SUVs: 02 Ford Escape, volt power source, light hook

Question
QUESTION: Matt
I bought this vehicle from a dealer.I was really pressed for time,the price was good and it checked out on the road trip.
After a couple weeks I noticed electrical problems. The door locks worked intermittantly, same as windows. One of the headlights was loose.
The garage hooked it to the computer and found no codes-of course that was the day it worked fine.
My theory is that it was in an accident, and somewhere inside the body a wire(s) got crimped or shorted.
Sound right?
I called the local Ford dealer-they said it could take hours to go through the wiring and it would be pretty expensive.
Can you suggest anything?

ANSWER: First go to carfax.com and run your VIN number located in the bottom corner of the winshield. This will verify if it was ever in an accident. Also, it could be in the driver side switch panel on the door. Does the locks and windows work on any other door when it acts up?

Matt

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Matt
When it stops working ALL the doors and windows stop.
Today they wouldnt work until I had been driving about five minutes,then they worked so I rolled down the windows,then came home and not working!
Hope it dont rain!

Answer
You may not have noticed this symtom but at night, when the windows and locks don't work does the lights in the switches stay lit or are they coming and going with the operation of the windows?  If the lights are going out on the driver's door the I have seen ground wires get chaffed and break inside a round rubber boot going from the body of the truck to the door. You pull this back and it pinches there on some fords. The other option to test is to pull the switch panel out of the door panel and take a test light or volt meter and find the big black wire on the back of the switch and test it for continuity or with a test light hook the ground lead of the test light to a 12 volt power source and then probe the blacj wire to see if you get a light. If you do move the door and see if it flickers. This is a definate tattle tail of the bad ground wire. If the drivers door has a bad ground none of the doors will work. The drivers door feeds power and ground to all of the ther doors so if it is dead the others will follow. If you don't feel comfortable checking it try telling the dealer to check power and ground to the drivers door to see if it has supply voltage in and out of the switch. This will take lots of guess work out of the equation.

Hope this helps some

matt