folding door mirror

EmilysDad

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Not the usual not folding problem.
My mirrors have never given any problems (apart from when I broke the ally casting inside one of them after mis-judging a gap) however my driver's side has now decided to misbehave.
On locking, it tries to fold passed its park position ie gets closer to the door than it should, but the motor is still trying to drive & there are 2 or 3 clicks ..... presumably a gear set somewhere in the fold mechanism. Opening seems fine & the open position is correct ie not loose in any way.

Car has been told not to fold mirrors on locking .....
 

BillyBoy

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My first guess is that there should be a microswitch or other sensor that detects the folded in point and isn't, either due to a broken wire or the sensor having moved / been dislodged. If you can get the casing off on both sides, and observe the fold in action, it may be easy to spot what is happening.

HTH,
Bill
 
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EmilysDad

EmilysDad

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It'll be next week before I get a chance to even look.
I think the cause was due to my grand daughter locking my car with my towing mirrors still attached as the extended mirrors will have hit the door before the car's mirror will have hit to it's park position ....
To be continued ..... :D
 

Botus

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not sure about merc ones, but many behave better if you regularly clean lube and operate in full direction each way, it may even help if you manual force it to fold... all mirrors by law must fold back so you hurt the pedestrians less when you are running them over, my fathers w211 seems exceptionally stiff to do this and does so in a different manner to the electrical fold but you can see / clean and lube things better.... once folded out they click back to normal position

u r aware folding every drive damages the wires and the mechanism....? I would suggest they are built to fold well, maybe a 1000 times after that they as less happy or the wires break
 
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EmilysDad

EmilysDad

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I'd hoped for the simple fix of yet more lube ..... I lived them to within an inch of its life .... but sadly no joy. I've tried folding them both forward & backwards manually too. It needs a proper look at & I'm in work all week end.
Broken wires are the opposite of my mirror fault ;)
 
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EmilysDad

EmilysDad

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Well .... I eventually got around to removing the mirror assembly ..... you can't rush these things :D

The gear on the end of the motor runs on a quadrant. As the mirror is folding, the motor gets to the end of the quadrant but drives on for another couple of clicks, so when in the fully folded position I re-engaged the quadrant onto the motor & then opened & closed the mirror. But it then tries to drive again for another couple of clicks.
A new mirror assembly ie the bit inside the body coloured cover is £260 ...... :shock::shock::shock::shock:

I've had enough of spending on this car now ..... it's had £hundreds on its brakes over the passed few weeks & I'm reluctant to to spend more. So it's a toss up of leaving them not folding or AN Other mirror, which is obviously a leap of faith in itself ... will it be any better than mine?
 

daibevan

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I'd leave them not folded. How many years did you drive cars that didn't have a folding mirror? Having said that it would pray on my mind until eventually I'd have to do something about it.:geek:
 
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EmilysDad

EmilysDad

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I'd leave them not folded. How many years did you drive cars that didn't have a folding mirror?
More than I care to remember
Having said that it would pray on my mind until eventually I'd have to do something about it.:geek:

I like things to work too ..... even if it has taken me 2 m9nths to get around to looking at it :oops:
 
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EmilysDad

EmilysDad

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Sorted!

'New' mirror arrived the day after I ordered off eBay. Needless to say that it was exactly the same ..... but different. o_Oo_O My mirror had another plug on the back of the glass itself ... I assume for auto dimming so I dismantled the loom from the original & fitted to the 'new' mirror housing using the original glass. You'd have thought that two mirrors from the same car from similar years would have been the same.
 

Naraic

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The new one could be from a LHD car.
 

Yugguy

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W204s have a design fault (the best or nothing my arse) where when the mirrors are folding out the electric motor doesn't stop trying to turn it even though they are fully out. You get this awful whining sound. Only cure is a damn expensive kit from MB that puts a current tester on the motor so that it will stop if it is pushing too hard.
 
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EmilysDad

EmilysDad

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W204s have a design fault (the best or nothing my arse) where when the mirrors are folding out the electric motor doesn't stop trying to turn it even though they are fully out. ....

That's similar to my original mirror's fault
 

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