melted mirror

[raymond.harper]

Drove out the garage to do a small errand then looked in side mirror after I has done my shopping and saw this.

Sorry image is upside down. Thought it must have been hit but on further examination it has melted. Did feel hot. Now I will have to use the car all week as I dare not reverse it into the garage!

 

[buzyg]

I like your attitude. That's a new one on me, you get to drive the Zed more so not all bad, but all the same , a bit odd. :?

 

[Beedub]

why on gods earth in their wisdom BMW decided to leave these heated even in 30 Deg C weather is beyond me..... I'm surprised this is the first melted one I've seen!!

 

[sharpyboy]

This happened to me the first week I had the car, everybody assumed the glass had fallen out and it was a known issue but you can see the remains of the old glass.



I just ordered the replacement glass and it comes with double sided sticky pads to attach and the heater elements still work.

 

[ben g]

why on gods earth in their wisdom BMW decided to leave these heated even in 30 Deg C weather is beyond me..... I'm surprised this is the first melted one I've seen!!

I never knew this until last summer why someone asked why my wing mirrors were so hot :lol: absolutely insane design flaw.

You'd have thought they could have engineered it so that they heated up when the in car heating was turned on. Perhaps that's too simple for a BMW engineer?

 

[Scooba_Steve]

Those shots just seem to show the backing pad to me, the glass has simply fallen out. There's no way it could get hot enough to melt glass.

 

[Newbers]

You're looking at the glue backing.
I had both of mine fall out in the same week.
You can:

1. buy just the glass for about £8 off ebay and stick it on.
2. Pull that plastic part of and replace the whole thing for £25 (cheap and lesser quality but OK off ebay)
3. Pull that plastic part of and replace the whole thing for £50ish from BMW

I agree with above that it's ridiculous that the heater is on all the time.

 

[sharpyboy]

It is not the glue backing of the mirror, if you look carefully you can see the vertical line that is in the glass for the aspheric blind spot/wide angle and all the glass is still there but burnt and cracked. It has obviously overheated and burnt whatever was used to stick it to the heating element. I was considering pulling out all the cracked glass but I had only ordered the replacement glass without the heating element so I decided to just stick the new glass over the old and it seems to be fine.

 

[Scooba_Steve]

Having had to stick both my mirrors back on I can assure you it's not the glass. The glass is affixed to a backing pad that looks just like that. When it dries up it cracks the surface layer but it's made of foam and can be peeled away. Glass melts at over 1400 Celsius and to burn anything onto the surface would also need a good few hundred. If the backing side had burnt then it would still be possible to get a reflection off the glass, cracking would only happen if very rapidly cooled (except from impact).

The backing plate the foam sits on also has a lip that sits higher than the foam so the glass is level with it, which I'd wager is how yours sits now, pretty flush with that lip.

I do find it very odd they are heated all the time, though maybe it was designed to also keep rain off.

 

[Vanne]

replaced mine with non heating ones.. can you imagine the power draw to heat these puppies up..

 

[raymond.harper]

Well as I had to put the Mini in the garage I just looked at the ground and found the intact mirror. So it seems the glue has just melted. And the post has just delivered my new one. Off to get some two sided tape

 

[firebobby]

If or when my mirror decides to make a break for freedom, I will try something like this
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/BLACK-HIGH-TEMPERATURE-SILICONE-ADHESIVE-SEALANT-20ml-HEAT-RESISTANT-300C-/252507943591?hash=item3acaa572a7:g:93IAAOSwIgNXudQh