How to replace "flag style" side view mirror

[Trent P.]

Don't know if this has ever happened to any of you before, but the adhesive lost its stickiness on my driver's side view mirror and fell off and chipped. Well, you can't just buy a replacement glass and stick it on, you have to replace the mirror and backing together.

The mirror actually has a plastic ring affixed to the back that will rotate about 1cm to lock it in place. To unlock the old one, you can do one of two things. The mirror housing has a hole in the bottom of it that you can stick a small screwdriver through to try to catch hold of the ring to turn it (the ring has notches in the bottom of it to facilitate turning). The other option is to actually move the mirror up and to the right as far as possible and that should allow you to see the notches under the mirror when actually looking at it from the front. The ring should be turned counter-clockwise to loosen it. You should then be able to pull it out to gain access to the heating wires (if you have them); there are two on the right hand side that pull straight off the terminals.

Now, just reverse the process to attach the new mirror, and voila!