Replacement wing mirror glass - Howto guide.

[DaftMule]

Hi,

Just replaced the near side wing mirror glass on my S-Type.  The one in place was a flat type which gives a ludicrously small field of vision so I wanted to replace with a convex version.

A few things cropped up in the process so I thought I'd write a little howto post, just in case anyone else needs to do the same.

First issue was what type of mirror did I have.  I knew it was heated but I didn't know whether it was an auto-dimming variant.  Couldn't really find any info on how to tell so I took a punt on it just being a standard heated mirror.  A hunt around on eBay turned one up for £9.99.  Worth noting that there is no difference between off-side and near-side mirrors for my 55 plate S-Type. Cannot vouch for that being the case for earlier or later variants though.

Next issue was how to remove.  The workshop manual that I sourced via this forum was not too clear.  It basically indicates that the mirror should just pull out.  I initially tried pulling on the inside edge but found nothing would budge.  Worried i was going to break something, I rotated the mirror glass so that the outside edge was proud of the wing mirror case and tried pulling on the outside edge.  The mirror then came away pretty easily.

As soon as I had removed the glass I knew I had made the wrong decision re replacement.  Turns out I do have the auto-dimming ones after all!  As you can see from the pics, the auto dimming ones has an extra cable splitting into a pink and black wire which attach to the edge of the mirror itself and must do the autom dimming magic.  It is also slightly thicker and heavier.  Without removing the glass you can see the extra thick, black cable if you have a torch and look behind so that is probably the way to tell if you don't know.

Ah well, in the short term I can put up without the auto dimming so I taped over the end of the connecter to try and prevent too much moisture getting in and just connected the heating wires back on to the new glass.

Fitting the glass back in was a bit fiddly.  You cannot really just push it back on as the electric motor and "holder" frame moves around.  Best way in the end that I found was to insert the inside edge onto it's clip bit and then getting my finger behind the outside clip section to give something to push against, the glass popped back into place (although I nearly got my finger stuck...lol!)

There you go.  slightly fiddly getting on/off but other than getting the wrong type of mirror, it was a pretty easy job.  

 

[JOE-DOT-COM]

Hi

you can usually tell by just removing the painted part of the mirror, it just clips off

then the amount of wires will tell you whether it mirror has memory, folding or electrochromatic

you don't see the electrochromatic ones as often, as they fail with age, they start to go a darker gold color as they fail, but they do pop up every now and then

I find it easier to remove the glass, by removing the painted cover first, slide forwards, then push a small screw driver through, to unclip the glass, as you push it out you can also grab it with your finger aswell

the mirrors are the same glass on a few jaguars, so don't just search for s-type

cheers

Joe

[Muadibe]

Hello all,

 I know these posts are a few years old, but I would like to say thanks for sharing your knowledge. 

Mark

[JOE-DOT-COM]

Hi

Most problems have been covered before, so using the search bar can find most answers with out waiting

some very useful info on here and if you find anything just hit like

cheers

Joe