Verso Drivers Door Mirror - Hanging By A Thread (Wire)

[TheWag]

Hi,

My better half came back from a brief shopping trip earlier. Drivers door mirror was involved in a reversing incident, it came to blows with a gate post as she was reversing.

The mirror glass and its enclosure are all intact, but it is no longer mounted to the car (the mirror enclosure is hanging off the wires that feed the mirror motor / heater) - it has become detached at the "swivel" joint that you use when you took the mirrors in, say in a crowded car park. Looking at both parts, it is difficult to see if anything is broken but I cannot see if / how the wind mirror will sit back on the swivel mount.

Any clues or bad news stories appreciated - at this stage, I'm naively counting my lucky stars as there is no other damage evident. I've had a look at the other side and surprised to see that it can be essentially folded both ways, i.e. mirror glass facing into the car, or 180 degrees the other way, away from the car.

Can it be pushed / popped back into place?

Is there a component that has likely failed - can it be replaced or is it a whole wing mirror?

For now, its bagged up in bubble wrap and gaffer taped to the driver door glass to stop it swinging in the wind

Appreciate your views

Thanks

[dervdave]

Hard lines mate its easy done, but I haven`t a clue how or even if it can be fixed (I doubt it some how).

[fat Bob]

Well it came off so it must be capable of going back on.

If it was detached in a reversing action I would attempt to reattach with the wing mirror pointing as far forward as possible (ie possible position where it popped out).

Try a little lubricant and maybe a hairdrier to slightly warm the hole.

I had same problem with a hre car (a Ford Explorer) in USA - I ripped the wing mirror off on a Joshua tree (they look fluffy but are rock hard).

I bought a new one and was told there was a technique to popping it back in - a short sharp whack. I duly did this and smashed the glass! Luckily I was covered by insurance.

[cabcurtains]

This happened to ours, Mrs CC unfolded it one morning and it just fell off i.e hanging by the wire. We tapped it to the side of the car and popped into Mr T, they said do not cut the wires. I scoured the web for a couple of days and couldnt find a used on soooo had to Shell close to £350 for a new painted fitted etc item, not happy. Put it down to s**t happens. It had no signs of any damage, the only thing we do have OCD about folding mirrors in. I can only assume that has weakend something after 3yrs of being folded 10x a day.

10x is due to folding when parked on streets.

[TheWag]

£350 - I really hope not for my sake.

My wife is going to take the car to Toyota on Monday to see what they say? If they suggest a figure anywhere near that then they'll be losing any future car purchases - £350 for such an innocuous bump (it was a wheelie bin, not a gate), or repeated mirror folding is laughable!

Thanks for your replies.

[cabcurtains]

The problem is with them being heated, painted and electric.

I hope your's is repairable

[ormi]

its broke and needs a new one you want to know the best part......when you buy a new mirror you dont get the cover ie the painted bit...you could try eBay

you can save some money by fitting it yourself its not too hard and takes around 15-20 mins to fit

[dervdave]

I`ve already had a look on eBay but theres not much on there, a few for a Yaris Verso.

[TheWag]

I guess it is too much to hope for that the body coloured shroud(s) is removable because there is nothing wrong with the one I've got.

Don't suppose you can give us a few instructions re: how to remove the old on and replace. Is it all done from behind the door card / trim?

My better half is off to the dealer tomorrow to confirm the damage and their laughable cost

[TheWag]

£240 supplied and fitted by dealership - apparently they come pre-painted. Still a lot of money but not as bad as others have been charged - perhaps its because our Verso is in "Verso Silver" as per practically every other Verso on the UK roads.

[dervdave]

Is the culprit paying ? ;)

[cabcurtains]

I dug out the invoice £278, must have thought it was plus VAT , still annoys me now

[miroslav]

I know this is an old thread, but perhaps my answer will help someone in the future.

I had the same thing happen to me - mirror hanging by wires one day. I taped it at first, found this thread later, cried a little at a prospect of paying so much for repair (300 GBP is so much more relatively in Serbia than in the UK), and then fixed it :o)

You need to take the door trim off, unplug the mirror connector, using a flat-headed screwdriver remove mirror cover (it is on the part of the mirror still attached to the door). If a claw in the cover breaks, you can glue it using a drop of acetone, since the cover is made of ABS. Remove two screws and one nut (nut removes from the inside - be careful not to drop it inside the door) and take the mirror out.

Now, disassemble the mirror - take the actual mirror element out, remove wires. You will see a metal tube with two sets of notches and a fairly strong spring in the part of the mirror that was attached to the car (let us call it "bottom part").

Put spring and tube into the bottom part and use a clamp to compress the spring so that both sets of notches protrude (you might want to use U shaped stack of wood blocks to make room for the tube). Turn the tube so that second set of notches "catches". Remove the clamp. Put the upper part of the mirror in place (notches go through the slots). Twist the mirror like you are folding it. Tube will turn, releasing the second set of notches through the slots in the bottom part of the mirror. Put the wires back, connect them to the mirror itself, put everything back the way it was.

Enjoy!

[Redwing8]

Hello- just had my passenger side mirror whacked by my wheelie bin- my wife putting the bin out this morning- and am not thrilled by the thought of a £300 bill. It is all intact. How big a job is it to do it yourself Miroslav?

[BryanCV]

Hi Mirorslav, thanks for the post. I am currently trying to do what you say but have run into a block with removing the mirror element. How you actually take the mirror apart? Thanks

[Abu_Ismaeel]

Thanks Miroslav for an informative post, I couldn't have done it without your info. Just a quick correction though: the spring and tube are actually in the mirror housing rather than the "bottom part" which you said attaches to the body of the car. This confused me a little. Also, there are 3 notches on the metal tube, not 2.

I thought I would add some advice too: the spring is very strong. I tried using a clamp, but found there wasn't enough clearance for tightening the clamp, which is why Miroslav mentioned using "u shaped block" to pack the tube and spring assembly, but this wasn't very effective as you also need to then rotate the tube once it is depressed, which is almost impossible when you use a clamp.

So I found the best way to depress and then rotate the tube/spring assembly was to use a crow bar clamped horizontally on its long shaft with the short end of the bar sticking vertically up, then sliding the mirror glass housing over the short end of the crow bar, locating the end of the crow bar in/on the end of the tube and pushing down with your body weight to depress the spring. This allows you to both depress the very strong spring and also rotate the mirror housing at the same time too so the notches in the tube catch and are retained by the plastic flanges. This is very fiddly and it may take a few attempts, but persevere and it will pay off!

One more thing: make sure the smaller of the two pieces of body coloured trim is clipped back into place on the "bottom part" (the piece which attaches the mirror assembly to the car body) first. This cannot be attached once you have done the above assembly!

[miroslav]

Redwing8 and BryanCV, I apologize for not responding earlier - I did not check the forum regularly.

In any case, I found some old photos, and thought they might prove helpful to someone. Here they are:

 

[v1v]

Hi Mirislav, I have followed your excellent instructions for taking the mirror off the door and I thought the rest would be easy. If you are still around would you let me know how you dismantled the glass holder inside the wing mirror. 

Any help dismantling the mirror would be greatly appreciated

Regards

Viv

 

[miroslav]

Hi Viv,

I think I just used force to pull the whole assembly out (as seen in the photos). It is probably not the correct way, but I did not break anything. There must be a way to remove just the lens and you might try sliding the lens to the side and then lifting it. I do not have the photos, but I think that is how I did it the second time someone hit my mirror.

Also be very careful when removing two wires that go to the heater element, since you can easily rip the connector from the foil - it happened to me while doing it the second time since I was much more relaxed because I "knew what I was doing".

[v1v]

Hi Miroslav,

thanks for your reply.

I got the Toyota mechanics to remove the mirror and I realised that nothing else required dismantling to refit the wing mirror to the part that fits on the door.

I taped the mirror to the wing mirror to protect the wires, I separated the wing mirror from the part that fastens to the door by pulling through the cable and then I used a clamp and a wooden frame to compress the spring whilst it was in the wing mirror housing.

I then put the other part over the metal part and engaged the lugs and then released the clamp, fed the wire back through and refitted the mirror glass and then refitted the mirror to the car

I was confused by some of the pictures as there is no need to dismantle the wing mirror and it only took around 15 minutes to fix the mirror once I had worked out how to do it

Your instructions on how to remove the door panel was very helpful

The tools I used were a Phillips screwdriver, a flat bladed screwdriver, a small  paint scraper, a 10mm socket with a small extension bar and a clamp and some padding to protect the wind mirror from the wooden frame

I made a wooden frame and a wooden bobbin to be able to compress the spring and it took me about 30 minutes to remove the mirror from the door and reattach it once fixed and about 30 minutes to compress the spring and reattach both parts of the mirror. I greased the part of the metal where it touched the spring

Thanks again

Viv

[Vytautas V.]

Here's how I squeezed the spring: ball bearing removal tool and 13, 20 heads.