Tire Place Breaks Mirror?

[ScoobySteve]

I drop off my car to get the tires balanced and come back to find this:



It looks like the threaded, springy piece inside is no longer threaded into the flag housing. Several questions:

1. Any chance this happened on its own (ie: not bumped?)
2. How do I fix it?

Is this a very common occurrence?

Grrr. Tire place has agreed to pay to fix anything. With that said, the manager is my roommate's cousin so I have to sort of tread lightly. And if there's an easy fix, I'm not against doing it myself. I just want a non-broken mirror.

[flash968]

lol - you didn't see this coming? (sorry - couldn't pass up the joke)

seriously though, after this many years of aging plastic parts and glues and such, no telling if it was the chicken or the egg - cool that they offered to fix it though

[Zero10]

This is semi-common, but it usually happens when somebody carelessly walks into the mirror. I've never seen one just break on its own.

There is a spring inside that swivel joint with a bolt/stop through it. When you rotate the mirror it compresses the spring (hence why the mirror lifts up). What has happened is the spring has come free of its attachment to the mirror itself. The base needs to be removed and you need to find out why the spring has come apart.
The good news is, if the pieces have broken they can be removed from a good mirror and it doesn't matter what color mirror they are from since they go inside and aren't painted.

[ScoobySteve]

Originally Posted by Zero10

This is semi-common, but it usually happens when somebody carelessly walks into the mirror. I've never seen one just break on its own.

There is a spring inside that swivel joint with a bolt/stop through it. When you rotate the mirror it compresses the spring (hence why the mirror lifts up). What has happened is the spring has come free of its attachment to the mirror itself. The base needs to be removed and you need to find out why the spring has come apart.
The good news is, if the pieces have broken they can be removed from a good mirror and it doesn't matter what color mirror they are from since they go inside and aren't painted.

Here's what I have:



and



As far as I can tell, the spring-loaded zinc assembly is not sheared off at the top. With that said, when I push from the bottom (inside the mount that attaches to the car) it seems like there will be no way to simultaneously compress the spring and turn it to thread it back into the mirror assembly. Do I need to remove the glass and motor assembly? Should it be a lot longer than it is (ie: it *is* sheared off)?

Speaking to the latter, I cannot find the bayonet "teeth." I've turned the mirror over and examined through the hole on the bottom from all angles and no detents or teeth are visible anywhere around the hole. I did the "tilt the mirror all the way back" trick and now I can see what appears to be a grouping of 5 teeth. I've spent 15 minutes trying to turn them counter-clockwise. They've moved a small amount but the mirror hasn't released. I did, however, manage to separate the mirror glass from the backing plate I think if I push any harder on the teeth they will break. The whole assembly in back is deflecting and bending.

At this point, I'm extremely frustrated that I'm spending my Saturday fixing a problem that isn't my doing. I'm tempted just to go to the dealer and make the tire place pay what will, most likely, be a $1000 bill.

Help.

[AaronM]

This happened to me while driving down the freeway. I seriously doubt that the tire shop did anything unusual to it.

From you photos, nothing is sheared off and there's no reason you cannot just put it all back together. The job is easy, but time-consuming and you will need a molex pin removal tool (and, if memory serves, a triple-square tool to screw the spring piece back in).

Taking the mirror off should not be as difficult as you describe, mine popped right off without difficulty, though it does take a bit of force to get the bayonet part to turn. Once that has been done, the only real pain in the butt part is taking apart the molex connector and making sure to mark which wires go where.

To thread the spring piece back into the mirror takes a large amount of force but isn't complicated. Re-assembly is pretty quick.

For a shop with the right tools, I can't imagine this taking more than 1.5 hours, and it's all labor, so maybe $150 if you have someone else do it.

[Zero10]

Originally Posted by AaronM

This happened to me while driving down the freeway. I seriously doubt that the tire shop did anything unusual to it.

And I am wrong from time to time!
That should leave you a little happier with the tire shop. Unfortunately you need to remove the wiring from the spring assembly and that requires removing the pins from the connector, but it is a straight-forward job, albeit a little bit difficult.

[ScoobySteve]

Thanks everybody. I've actually done the calculation and there's a greater chance that DNA testing is wrong than the tire place having nothing to do with it.

BTW I went to 2 Fry's Electronics and 2 Radioshacks and they all had the 0.093 Molex pin removers and not the 0.063 ones I need.

Anyone have a tool in Socal?

[HondaDustR]

If it's just removing the pins out of a connector, I always got away with some patience with a sewing needle, or a very small screwdriver like the kind that comes in eyeglass repair kits to poke the little retaining clips in and the pins just pull out.

[AaronM]

Originally Posted by ScoobySteve

Thanks everybody. I've actually done the calculation and there's a greater chance that DNA testing is wrong than the tire place having nothing to do with it.

BTW I went to 2 Fry's Electronics and 2 Radioshacks and they all had the 0.093 Molex pin removers and not the 0.063 ones I need.

Anyone have a tool in Socal?

A company called Lisle makes what they call a "Terminal Tool" that will have the appropriate 0.062 molex pin remover. Computer and electronics stores will probably not carry that size since the most common molex plug in computers is the IDE power connector which uses the 0.093 pins.

The Lisle tool you want is one of these two, I cannot remember which, but I believe that it is the first one:

http://www.lislecorp.com/tool_detail.cfm?detail=1111

http://www.lislecorp.com/tool_detail.cfm?detail=105

[ScoobySteve]

Originally Posted by AaronM

A company called Lisle makes what they call a "Terminal Tool" that will have the appropriate 0.062 molex pin remover. Computer and electronics stores will probably not carry that size since the most common molex plug in computers is the IDE power connector which uses the 0.093 pins.

The Lisle tool you want is one of these two, I cannot remember which, but I believe that it is the first one:

http://www.lislecorp.com/tool_detail.cfm?detail=1111

http://www.lislecorp.com/tool_detail.cfm?detail=105

I ended up finding the 0.062" Molex tool. Unfortunately, this *is not* the correct size. There is a special Porsche tool. However, some enterprising owners discovered that the original connectors were made by AMP and the following is the correct extractor tool:

AMP 305183

$11.54 at Mouser Electronics

I've got one on order.