The Driver's side mirror on my truck was knocked off by the Salt Lake City snow plow trucks on at least three occasions. The first time, no sweat. Just popped it right back on. The second time the actual mirror glass broke, but it still popped right back on with the electrical controls still working perfectly. The third time, however, broke the post off at the base (where it used to pivot to fold in). For the past three years that mirror has been held in place with Gorilla Tape.
I thought that this week I'd treat myself and try to find a replacement mirror.
Cracked housing, and fancy tape-job.
This mirror is from Rachel's Honda! It came from her passenger side mirror, which was removed in the "Great Snow Incident in the Stadium Parking Lot" of 2010. Being the thrifty guy that I am, I just glued in onto mine! (Twice, actually...)
The OEM replacement part is $50 brand new from the store. I found it for $40 including shipping online, but still thought that was a bit steep. Time to visit some salvage yards!
Today I'm visiting a local pick-n-pull. If the part you need is still on one of these auctioned-off cars, they're happy to sell it to you. Finding a good part is the tough part...
Most of the Ford trucks are in really bad shape. The ones that still had mirrors were worse off than mine.
Finally found one! This is the donor vehicle. And the color's perfect! Just kidding. But Rachel gets in on the passenger side anyway--she'll never know the difference. ;)
The old and new! I'm actually just gonna pop off the color-matched panel from the old mirror and use it on the new one. (And I guess wash all of the bug guts off of it...)
Ready for the swap!
Door guts. I only had to take it down this far to get to the old electrical connection. I want to see if the 'new' mirror's controls will work. It only takes about 3 minutes to remove the door panel. Two screws, pop off some other panels, 4 screws for the speaker, and disconnect the door lock/window control switches.
New mirror looks pretty sharp! It's gonna take some time to re-adjust to the straight mirror after using Rachel's old convex mirror for so long. And the best part is that the controls work! Power mirror!
Back to brand new!
What was the total cost, you're probably wondering? $27!
Thanks for looking, and have a great day! :D
