Another mirror incident that damaged my outside mirrors on the truck happened. Okay fine, yes…I broke one…again. For some reason finding a new mirror glass and backing plates has proven to be a big ole pain in the butt to find. I finally find the correct mounting style and the measurements are off and it wont mount correctly. Then Joanne mentioned about just adding a whole new mirror. I never searched for that nor had an idea of cost. To my surprise, they are pretty cheap really. At least for my 2004 Dodge 3500.
I ended up buying a pair of mirrors off of Amazon. They were purchased from MOSTPLUS and were heated and powered mirrors. Along with a light on the corner of the mirror for a turn light. Cost for the ones I got, $165.99. For the pair. The mirror main glass is powered and heated while the convex is manual adjust.
The job to switch the mirrors out is pretty easy really. I believe anyone with basic mechanical knowledge can do this job. On my truck trim package it required a cross slot screwdriver and a 10mm socket and ratchet. Finding a 10mm socket was the hardest part. Any mechanic of any level gets that 10mm issue. The job took about 20 minutes for removal and replacement per door.
The door panels on my Dodge are easy to remove and they do not use those damn Christmas tree type of fasteners. There a simple L type brackets that hold the panel on. After removing the screws you simply lift up and out.
The mirrors I bought needed to have the three studs installed on the mirror, again and easy job. They came with new studs and nuts.
The mirrors also came with a good amount of wire to run through and out the door to be wired in to the turn signal source. At this time I did not wire that in and will look at doing that later. But I do want to get it done as it is another nice safety feature to have. So I simply disconnected the extra wire at the connector and stored them away for later.
Mirrors removed and then just do the reverse to install the new mirrors. Again, took me about 20 minutes per door to do the changeover.
I am really loving the new mirrors from what I had on the truck before. The convex mirror difference is so much better than my corner convex mirror. I can now see low and wide from the convex section of the mirror. The main mirror is great as well.
I wished I would have realized how inexpensive and easy the mirror change was a long time ago. This change would have been done way back when I got the truck.
The TC Life 