HVAC on the 2013 Mini has been wonky for a few weeks. Blows cold at first, then goes warm. Sitting and idling sometimes it goes back to cold.
I have the Swaben scan tool to pull BMW faults and read sensors. As best I can tell the IHKA control unit has failed. There are a couple guys on the BMW forums showing how to fix them on BMW's but I am leery.
The guys who discount them online want $700. I ordered a used unit with a 6 month warranty from Ebay last night for $75.

Not to mention that the mirror has to go to the body shop first for paint (at least w/Porsche). Can I say this without side tracking the thread?...when the Cayenne first came out, we had a customer whose mirrors worked opposite of what they should...up was down and out was in, etc. I think the Windows worked backwards too if I recall correctly. After hours and hours of unpaid diagnosis (it was under warranty), swapping with known good mirrors and window motors, recoding everything all to no avail, I finally contacted PCNA help desk and they nonchalantly said "Oh, code it for lighted door sills, even though it doesn't have them." That fixed it. Computers, can't live with em and can't live without em. No wonder it's getting so expensive! Glad to be retired as it just gets worse.

I am not an expert in Lexus side mirrors, but wouldn’t that $121.62 one fit?

https://www.google.com/search?q=rx350+side+mirror&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-us&client=safari

Yes - as said above - the mirrors come unpainted. So add labor to r&r the door panel. I could easily see that's about right retail install.

And probably self dimming and electronically adjustable via a button from inside the car.

So it's not just a mirror. It's a mirror with the motor to fold in to the side of the car, plus the motors to adjust the mirror, plus the radar and lighting that indicates that there's a car next to you plus the self dimming feature.

Does that really sound like something that would be $100?

I could see this being $100
http://www.am-autoimages.com/partima...96893/main.JPG

But what you're talking about is a mirror with more technology in it than an '80 Chevy

One of my buddies has a wife with some new 4 door SUV that looks like all the others. Loaded with gizmos like any new car. I don't remember what it is, but it does not matter they all look the same in that class. Anyway the tire pressure monitoring system is just impossible to keep running. It freaks her out to see a big warning of a tire out of range, and the husband checks it with a nice air gauge, and all 4 tires are the same. She will not just ignore it, and I see her point. It is pointless to have a monitoring system that it simply always ignored. What if there really is a low tire? He is ready to swap to a different car just because of that.

I recently read that people are now stealing side mirrors. High profit margin on the used/replacement market.

My most recent car was $1000. And it came with working A/C. ;)

My previous daily driver was a 2001 Jetta my son paid $200 for. (I traded my 2005 Vibe to him when he moved to Missouri for a job). That had everything working, including the A/C, but I wanted something that was more fun to drive.

The Mini is fun to drive but it is maintenance intensive.

And this is what makes being an indie totally suck. I do not have access to inventory just sitting on the shelf to swap out and try nor do I have access to PCNA tech.
There was a time in my life, where there was nothing, nothing, that I could not diagnose, and repair.
Those days are long gone

The one I found for Mrs. Lee's X1 was the same color. It was easy to find one on eBay. No painting or blending required.

When I bought my last new car they offered me an extended warranty option for "wear and tear" that covers interior trim, door mirrors, basically anything you could damage during normal use or a minor accident that your car insurance would not typically cover. This is exactly why people buy these types of warranties. A door mirror on your Lexus probably costs what a new transmission would have cost on a car 20 years ago. Like driving the space shuttle.

My buddy has a Mercedes CLS coupe. He was driving and a truck threw up a chunk of 2x4 that broke the big 5" logo on the front.

He takes it to the dealer to see if he can buy a new logo, figures $200-300 even though it's just a big plastic disc, doesn't want to get insurance involved.

No such luck, there's a sensor behind the logo and you have to buy the whole front grill, $4,000.00. He tells the repair guy to go ahead and replace it, he's going to have to get insurance involved.

Calls his insurance company and they tell him Mercedes Benz is not an authorized repair facility, WTF? I think he paid a huge chunk of change out of pocket.

Exactly. I try to support my local Porsche indie...but honestly the last 2 times I have called them they say "I can't get that part" or "Only the dealer can do that"....and my 911 is 15 years old! Granted I do most of my own work and only call them for stuff I don't want to do.

Even the outside mirror has logic that needs to be coded...do you want it to drop when you engage reverse, if so, several choices for how many degrees. That coding is generally proprietary and only the Porsche computer can do it. More money!

How is this any different than having a windshield replaced?
Accidents happen. On a cars insurance these days, you need a deductible to live with.
Otherwise, you are self insuring.

Our daughter recently moved from New York and just "bought" (actually leased) a new Mini last week, her first car purchase. They offered her the same/similar protection policy for minor damages that would be fixed with no deductibles--door dings, scratches, etc--things that would come back to bite at the end of the lease. Being an old-school type, I would not have bought it, but if it covers trim and mirrors (I did not read the policy), then I can see the value as the policy would be paid for with one side mirror accident.

Ultimately we got the correct color mirror from an ebay store for $150. I did the install. My friend was quite thrilled at that compared to what Lexus wanted.

She owes you dinner!!!

I purposely ordered my truck with everything manual. Mirrors, Windows, t-case, trans. Everything...
I like everything manual, excerpt for my semiautomatic's. :D