DEADDACK_33
Active Member
- Thread starter
- #1
Okay, so here's the story.
A few days ago, I was driving down the highway and heard a "thunk" against my driver's side door. My head quickly snapped to the left and in the mirror I see a small black plastic thing bouncing across the pavement. Since traffic was heavy and I was only a few minutes from home, I opted to keep going instead of pulling onto the shoulder. Once I got home, I gave my driver's side an inspection and within seconds found what it was that had flown off:
I quickly hopped on Google and tried to search for the part number, but not only could I not find one, what I did find indicated you can only get that access cover by purchasing the entire mirror assembly. Needless to say, I went back out to the highway to go find the part. I parked in an approach and started hiking the ditch on either side of the highway. After about 20 minutes I found it on the shoulder:
I was pretty impressed with how little damage it had sustained bouncing and sliding across the pavement at highway speed. One tab broke off and the other was hanging by a thread (so I removed it), but no cracks, bends, deep scratches, and it fit back in perfectly. It just had no way to actually snap into place. So after some contemplating and considering various ideas (epoxy, crazy glue, tape, etc), this is what I did:
I used Gorilla tape to tape the ends of cable ties on the top portion to service as tabs to hold it in place. The four on the sides I kept fairly short as there isn't a lot of room inside the mirror, but I did leave the one on the end longer as there is more room in that area. I also used the end of the cable ties as they're a bit thinner and flexible there. When I installed it, I put the wide end in first with the long cable tie portion, and then flexed the other four and got each started, and popped the whole thing in. It seems to be very secure. I can remove it, but when I do, I have to give it a pretty good tug for the cable ties to flex enough to drop the cover out. If I start to pull it out and let go, it snaps back up. Here is what it looks like being held in with the cable tie ends:
So it isn't much, definitely far from an impressive or sophisitcated DIY fix, but maybe this will help someone else who has one of these covers fall out. I did reach out to the parts department at the dealership just to confirm they couldn't order just the cover (it even has a part number stamped on it) and they confirmed they only way to get a new cover is to order the entire mirror assembly...$1272
There are certainly other ways to secure the cover back in like applying epoxy all the way around the lip and cementing the cover on, or using something like autobody repair tape to tape it in. I wanted something that was both seamless and would still allow for the cover to be removed if ever needed.
A few days ago, I was driving down the highway and heard a "thunk" against my driver's side door. My head quickly snapped to the left and in the mirror I see a small black plastic thing bouncing across the pavement. Since traffic was heavy and I was only a few minutes from home, I opted to keep going instead of pulling onto the shoulder. Once I got home, I gave my driver's side an inspection and within seconds found what it was that had flown off:
I quickly hopped on Google and tried to search for the part number, but not only could I not find one, what I did find indicated you can only get that access cover by purchasing the entire mirror assembly. Needless to say, I went back out to the highway to go find the part. I parked in an approach and started hiking the ditch on either side of the highway. After about 20 minutes I found it on the shoulder:
I was pretty impressed with how little damage it had sustained bouncing and sliding across the pavement at highway speed. One tab broke off and the other was hanging by a thread (so I removed it), but no cracks, bends, deep scratches, and it fit back in perfectly. It just had no way to actually snap into place. So after some contemplating and considering various ideas (epoxy, crazy glue, tape, etc), this is what I did:
I used Gorilla tape to tape the ends of cable ties on the top portion to service as tabs to hold it in place. The four on the sides I kept fairly short as there isn't a lot of room inside the mirror, but I did leave the one on the end longer as there is more room in that area. I also used the end of the cable ties as they're a bit thinner and flexible there. When I installed it, I put the wide end in first with the long cable tie portion, and then flexed the other four and got each started, and popped the whole thing in. It seems to be very secure. I can remove it, but when I do, I have to give it a pretty good tug for the cable ties to flex enough to drop the cover out. If I start to pull it out and let go, it snaps back up. Here is what it looks like being held in with the cable tie ends:
So it isn't much, definitely far from an impressive or sophisitcated DIY fix, but maybe this will help someone else who has one of these covers fall out. I did reach out to the parts department at the dealership just to confirm they couldn't order just the cover (it even has a part number stamped on it) and they confirmed they only way to get a new cover is to order the entire mirror assembly...$1272
There are certainly other ways to secure the cover back in like applying epoxy all the way around the lip and cementing the cover on, or using something like autobody repair tape to tape it in. I wanted something that was both seamless and would still allow for the cover to be removed if ever needed.
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