Corolla Mirror Fitting

[J&A]

My father owns a 2003 Corolla T3 1.4 Petrol (E11) and the other day he had a "mirror joust" with a 4X4 coming the other way. Needless to say he lost but the damage was pretty extensive. After the collision there was hardly anything left of the mirror- just the rubber gasket, the pivot and a couple of wires dangling pathetically from the wreckage- it's unheated but is motorised.

I've managed to source a replacement (Just under £62- anyone know of a cheaper source?) but I'm a bit perplexed over the actual fitting. On every other Toyota that I've owned refitting is just a case of removing a moulding and undoing a couple of screws. However this example looks as if the whole door card has to come off, but how? I can't see any obvious retaining screws so is it all held together by clips? I know you can buy specific tools for door clips but I've never needed one before- is now the time to invest?

Any help or advice would be really welcome- it has to be sorted as a matter of some urgency as the MOT is imminent. Thanks in advance

Jon&Ali

[TheSpannerMonkey]

firstly not having a mirror doesnt neccessarily fail the mot, it used to be that you need 2 mirrors, but it recently changed to needing the offside wing and rear view mirrors, but i am guessing from your description that the offside wing is the damaged one,

the later corolla door cards are held mainly by plastic clips, these tend to come of pretty easy without any special tools, and generally wont brake anything if they do stay on the door when the card comes of, just get all the screws out and give it a good tug, if you do find some of the clips are still on the door, pull them of with a pair of long nose pliers and clip them back on the doorcard,

[J&A]

Well, I managed to remove the piece of trim at the top edge of the door, giving easy access to the 3 mounting bolts. Now I just need to get at the plug so I can disconnect it. Is there a simple way of releasing it without resorting to pulling the whole door card?