Broken Side Mirror Replacement

[Bk201]

Hi all, I own a Lexus IS220d, 57 plate.

Some boy racer (late 30s fat hairy bloke trying to be a boy racer) in a souped up mazda has decided to clip my drivers side wing mirror. In the aftermath it appears the the housing for the mirror is intact and still works (automatic open/close via the switch on the drivers door), the mirror can still be adjusted too. So all that is broken is the heated mirror glass (it is cracked and splintered but still attached to the housing and usable - but will fail my upcoming MOT).

After some googling around it appears that I have several options. The first and simplest is to get another mirror (without the heating element) and use the foam adhesive to stick it on top of the broken glass or on the plastic clip. I can get this for about £6 and in either the plain or blue tint versions (which look quite nice).

1. Having a second mirror attached on top of the heated mirror, will this affect the heating of the mirror in any way? - logic dictates that it will still work, albeit slower due to heat transfer taking longer. Can anyone confirm (or is the heating element broken with the glass?)?

The second option is to get a heated mirror like this. Its cheap (under £10), and from the description, looks like it will fit my car. However it does not come with the black plastic clip (see attached file).

2. How hard is to attach a new mirror to the old clip?

Are there any other considerations I need to take into account before attempting to replace the mirror? Anyone here with some experience, care to give me some feedback?

Thank you

[Guest bigbullhead]

I had heated mirrors on my Astra and there straight forward to fit usually spade end electrical connector and strong 3m tape to secure and by the look of yours it may need to clip into something also I bought off eBay and very pleased

[Bk201]

Thanks for the reply. Watched a few videos on youtube. eBay seems to have replacment aspheric mirrors (first one I ordered, the guy ended up delivering the wrong size), but I cannot find where to get the black plastic clip that fits into the mirror housing. Any ideas?

I'm more than happy for a salvage part if anyone knows any in Birmingham, uk?

[Bk201]

I have now fit my replacement mirror :)


For anyone interesting in how I did it, here is a mini guide. Hope it helps someone, as the lack of information was quite bewildering. So if you need to replace the mirror of an IS220, (mine is 57 plated), here is how:

First some information:

Car mirrors come in 3 different shapes
Flat - 1:1 ratio (real vision)
Spherical/Convex - wide angle view mirror - shows smaller objects than in reality
Aspherical/Wide angle - this is a combination of a convex mirror and a second part to the mirror at a slight angle (divided by a vertical line) - to eliminate blind spot. Aspherical mirrors are standard in UK cars.

The heating element, is just a sticker attached to the back, with a heat circuit printed on it (like the rear window on cars) (The original was a sort of sticky-back plastic as opposed to a papery sticker and the construction felt more premium than the eBay part I ended up with, in any case, it looks cheap to produce and I can only imagine that at most it costs less than £5 to make in a factory), this has two metal contacts, which need to be attached to the mirror housing. Its just a small metal contact on the sticker, and the housing has wires with a plastic plug on the end, that you push on to the contact, so not complicated at all. (no soldering or anything needed).


Sourcing the parts:

After scouring gumtree, and preloved, and google, I found several salvage wing mirrors - none were selling just the glass itself, they contained the housing too. And the cheapest I could get was £75 for a dark blue coloured one delivered from London, from a private seller (who was asking for money transfer to his account prior to delivery).

Lexus Birmingham, quote me £150 just for the glass, due to some gel or some other nuance within the glass.

Right, then I turned to amazon and eBay. There are a few sellers that sell just the glass on its own, thankfully, and with the heated element on them too. The first one that I ordered was this mirror on ebay. It was delivered really quickly, but to my dismay, I found that the mirror was a little too small for my car, and the heating sticker was tiny, covering 25% of the mirror. To the sellers credit, he offered a full refund immediately and I lost £1.55 on postage.

I then ordered a second mirror, this was the correct size and the heating element was much larger, though I had to adjust it (peel back sticker and reapply) so that the contacts were at the right place for my mirror clip. The seller was really quick with the dispatch, and was helpful in suggesting to use the hairdryer tip.

Taking the broken mirror out:

(Try and do all of this on a driveway or off the road to avoid traffic while you are working).

This is really simple, you have to get into the car, and adjust the mirror, using the automatic controls. Get the mirror to point as far up was you can, towards the sky - this exposes the under side of the mirror slightly. Next you need a large flathead or scraper, or a spatula, and slide it under the glass. (Since the glass is broken, you can get messy and break it out). I felt for the plastic clip, rested my scredriver on there, and pushed out gently. (be careful, you might damage the paintwork on the mirror housing, or get broken glass everywhere (wear gloves and protective eyewear, if the glass is broken in tiny fragments. In my case, the cracks were few and the clip came out with the glass, easily enough.

Next I had to remove the shattered glass from the black clip, again this was relatively easy as the glass was broken and I didnt really care how it came out. (again, be careful, broken glass is dangerous), and unplug the wires from the heat sticker, they are not soldered, just unplug the plastic clip off the metal contact.

Putting the new mirror on:

(picture above: Not mine. Taken from google images. It shows the plastic clip for the mirror, the parts circled are the bits that need to attach to the housing, and on the top right, you can see the wires connected to the heating elements)

I used my wife's hairdryer to heat the plastic clip around the edges to give it some flexibility (you can use a heatgun or another heat source), just don't melt the plastic or burn it. Then ease the new glass in, this should take a little pressure, but do not break the glass.

Once that is done, take the mirror and clip to the car and attach the wired to the heat sticker, then place the clip back in, carefully. Easier said than done. This was the most time consuming part, and required a few restarts and some hair pulling. It might help, asking a friend to help, and using small screwdrivers to guide the plastic clips attachment back into place.

But it is now fixed and works like new. Result.