Bringing the kids home from sports training, I was messing a bit, opening their back windows from the front (thank God for rear window interlocks!). Tried to put them back up and the left rear wouldn't rise beyond half way, at which point it would drop again.

Took the door skin off (finding in the process that the interior handle had obviously been off and broken before I got it as it had been glued), found that the cable had broken a few strands and they'd got would up at either end. Cable was very rusty too, door liner was like a swiss cheese. When playing around with it, the cable ended up breaking (obviously wasn't far from doing it as I'd not be that incompetent ).

Lifter mechanism seems fine and motor too - anyone know if the cable can be bought / fitted without the rest of the lifter mechanism? Also, is the Golf / Bora likely to have the same lifter - VW garage is 10 mins from work, Skoda garage is 30 mins in the wrong direction. What kind of price are these things likely to be for supply only?

Window regulator about £45 + VAT, cable you can't buy separately, you may be lucky and get a decent used one. Fiddling about with just the cables is time consuming and fiddly, winding them on to the winder and having them come off again. I speak from experience having messed about making up a good regulator from 2 not so good ones.

Thanks for the help Fordfan - collected my replacement regulator today(