Unable to adjust manual remote door mirrors. A fix!

[DerekHa]

Have been work on my partners 107 over the last few days.

She complained about the door mirrors not moving with the interior lever on the front doors. Had thought I would find some reference to a fix for this either on one of the Aygo, C1 or 107 forums or U tube. Nothing at all, just seems people are replacing them with cheap new ones.

Decided I have a look at the inner workings following one of the video's showing removal/replacing the mirrors.

With the main part of the mirror off the car there's a black rubber/plastic gasket that protects the adjustment mechanism, not sealed and easily lifted. Behind it are three metal cables running from the back of the control lever, across and then up underneath the mirror itself. These are similar to bicycle brake or gear cables, but are bare metal coiled sheaths with an inner that runs from the back of the control lever to the back of the mirror. One cable controls the vertical and the other two the lateral movements of the mirror. 

Seemed as though the inner cables were seized somewhere along the length of each of the three control cables. Time for some wdforty stuff! Sprayed around the base of the lever and along the length of each of the three outer cables, allowed the oily stuff to do it's thing, to flow back towards the control lever and then back the other way towards the where the cables disappear behind the mirror glass.

Found that easing the lever gently around, the mirror began moving as intended. Started on the passenger side so repeated the same steps on the drivers door mirror with the same success. Didn't take long at all to have these off, free them up and refit!

Both mirrors refitted and are fully working again. Saved atleast £40 and the likely hood of having the colour matched to the body work as well.

Word of warning! There are three self tapping bolts that secure the outer assembly to the door. One is black and easily accessable and the others are silver and more difficult. The silver ones are recessed inside the inner window frame. You'll need a 10mm socket to remove them but the upper silver bolt is easily lost and falls inside the door cavity as I found out! Something stuffed inside the the cavity and below that bolt will help and can be removed when your finished

Hope someone finds this of some use and saves themselves a few £'s in the process.

[Puglet]

Thanks for the info, might give this ago as our 107 is the same, I wouldn't mind but having owned it from new and have rarely adjusted mirrors in that time and cables still gone to pot. I just manually adjusted mirror with window down, like I had to to do with our 107's predecessor a Mk2 Escort, at least the 107 came with 2 door mirrors as standard!

[DerekHa]

Hi Steve,

It's well worth spending the few minutes it takes to get the mirrors off and free the cables up. Was surprised that nobody had tried this!

I assume the three city bugs share the same parts suppliers from new, I noticed the mirrors are made in Slovakia. Both mirrors used identical cables, the outer flexibles are made out of something similar to stainless steel, no sign of any corrosion. I think the original lubicant just dries out causing them to sieze up.

If they sieze again I'll try some Deb/Swarfega Duck Oil as it's a lot thicker and longer lasting but WD40 likely the best product to get things moving first.