Rearview Mirror Replacement

S

Sloth

New member
Hi all, I've already got so much out of the how to's on here I thought I'd throw something back! It's a very simple job but it took some courage to just jump in and have a look. Figured it out straight away from just having a go blindly myself, so it really is a simple job. If anything, this might help give someone a heads up of what they'll expect to see.

Part: Oval type, autodimming rearview mirror (My vehicle: Z4M Coupe 2007)
Time: 10 minutes
Tools required: None
Skill level: Low

1. Lower the mirror down so you can see what you're doing.
2. Press down on the left hand half of the cowling behind the mirror to release the two halves.
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Here are the two halves in more detail and the links between them:
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3. Unplug the harness to the mirror.
4. Twist the mirror arm in a clockwise direction and it will release after 60 degrees of motion.
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Here is what the mount looks like on the windscreen
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This is what the fixing looks like on the end of the mirror arm (it may look slightly different from mirror to mirror. Shown here is the replacement mirror. The original mirror arm fixing looked slightly different but achieves the same goal.)
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Now fix the new mirror back in the reverse way you took the old one off.
Plug back in the harness.
5. Ensure the wire tidy is lipped into the two halves of the mirror arm cover when pressing them back together.
7.jpg


Below are the picks of the mirror interior just for interest. I replaced the old mirror due to the autodimming liquid crystal leaking through a faulty seal. The clips holding the two halves of the mirror housing were very tight and were easily broken, so if you plan on doing some repairs or DIY projects that require splitting the mirror, take care!
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It is possible to buy replacement mirrors from an outfit called 'Radar Mirror' in Texas USA http://www.radar-mirror.com/Mirror_Repair.html.

On their website they offer an exchange repair service, but they will sell the mirrors to overseas customers rather than your having to wrap up your mirror and send it to the States. You have to remove the electronics from the back of the mirror and unsolder the wires from the faulty mirror and resolder them to the new one in the right polarity. Allegedly the mirrors they supply are of superior quality to the BMW ones.

The trouble with replacing the unit with the BMW one is that: a) The BMW replacement is about £400, and b) The mirror is likely to fail again, as the fluid used is of lower viscosity than that supplied by Radar Mirror, allegedly. I have just ordered mine from them, and will let you know how I get on with it.

I should add that I have no connection with the firm apart from being a potentially satisfied customer. I will post on the true degree of satisfaction attained. :-|
 
OK chaps. The replacement mirror arrived last week. The total cost of supply was $134.00. The kind supplier declared the value on the documents as $10. Not strictly accurate, but it saved me the attentions of the customs. The removal of the circuit board from the back of the failed unit and attachment to the new one had to wait on other tasks, but was done over the weekend. The process is well defined in the links shown, but there are a couple of points I think worthy of amplification.

The splitting of the casing surrounding the mirror support on the windscreen is fairly straightforward, but the opening of the mirror itself requires quite worrying amounts of force. The clips holding the front and back components of the mirror case together are clearly designed for assembly but not for disassembly. They will break. The reassembly, at least in my case, did not feel so secure as the original unit. It is not actually falling apart, but the seam around the mirror is not so tight as it was. I'm going to keep an eye on it,and if it seems to be tending to fall apart I might be inclined to use a bit of hot melt glue to keep it together.

Removing the circuit board proved to be a bit of a bore. I used a small Stanley knife, you know; the kind with the replacement blade which retracts into the handle and has diagonal scores across it to allow the tip to be broken off many times to get a fresh cutting edge. I found that if the blade was fully extended it could be slipped in between the sticky tape and the back of the mirror so that the tape and mirror came apart and there was sufficient stick left to put it back on the new mirror securely.

Unsoldering the old mirror was easy, but I was a bit nervous about soldering the new one. After all, soldering involves molten metal, and the little clips to which you are soldering are quite thin, and so there was a chance the heat might damage the new mirror cell. I need not have worried. With a hot and reasonably large iron the soldering required the merest touch of the iron, and the job was done.

The final task which I found quite fiddly was the repositioning of the two halves of the mirror base shroud. There are two harnesses of wires underneath the split. One of them runs in the metal part of the stem, and cannot be anywhere else. The other is quite mobile, and tends to get caught in the gap and prevent you from closing the two parts. I found you could deliberately pull it to the right away from the gap, and it adopted a position to one side and ceased to be an obstruction. There is also a little black rubber trunk which enters the top of the shroud. I tried pulling it down to trap it in the hole in the shroud, but found I needed three hands. Eventually I clipped the shroud together and then poked the end of the trunk in its hole with a small electrician's screwdriver.


Finally I took the car out for a run this evening in the twilight. I works!

I gave myself a small pat on the back. And thanks again to Radar Mirror for the wherewithall to do the job. Saved meself the thick end of £500.
 
Just what I needed.

A parking attendant tried to adjust my mirror by holding the dimmer adjustment knob and broke the bugger off. :x

Can this knob be replaced, or at a minimum is there a way to adjust the dimming without the knob before I disassemble it?

Thanks in advance,

Brian
Oakland, NJ, USA
 
Thanks for this guide.

FYI I found the mirror was easily splitted without damaging any clips using a cheap set of plastic trim removal tools. Leverage one of the smaller angular pieces in, near the middle of the mirror on the lower side. And then just using a small straight piece towards the side of the first piece, and rotating it slightly, working around the mirror this worked fine for me. (auto dimming mirror on a 2.5si.) Perhaps other models are harder to take apart.
 
Hi, thanks for all the info. I will try to change the glass once it arrives but kinda stressed about it because I don’t wanna damage anything.. do you have maybe any guide/video that can maybe help? Thanks..
 
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