Hi All,

My passenger side wing mirror glass is "floppy". It doesnt really move with the electric adjustment as id expect.

Ive pulled it out (it wasnt difficult) and I can see the springs but I cant get it to locate properly on the electric mount (gimble thing the motors inside moves about). It seems to have a lot of free play so Im thinking its had a bit of a crunch.

Before I invest in a new wing mirror am I being a bit dense. Or should the glass just snap into place easily once ive moved the little wire tag out of the way.

Im reluctant to take the drivers door wing mirror glass out to compare in case I cant get it back in place and that one works fine!

From memory its quite hard to remove and does just pop back but its been a while since some nice people relieved our car of its mirrors as they wanted them for their own!
I think if the mirror does not snap home then its because one of the clips is missing or bent and it cannot do it properly.

Its been a long time since I fitted one (thankfully), but isn't there a sort of tag on the side which you have to press to compress the springs to fit them in place?

There are indeed two tags that sit proud of the glass. You have to compress these anyway, else the glass physically won't go in the mount. But once that's done, if the glass is located centrally then a firm press in the centre portion (not firm enough to break it) should snap the ring on the back of the glass into the gimbal arrangement in the housing. It should be a fairly positive action but you don't get a "click" as such. The mirror should then work as intended.

On issue with doing this is that if the mirror was left adjusted way-out of "glass-flat to housing" then finding what angle the glass needs to sit at to engage can be tricky. I suppose you could solve this by fitting the broken mirror to the car and moving it about with the paddle control until the gimbal ring looks pretty straight vertically and horizontally, then snap the glass back in in-situ.

I have found that not only do you need to pull the retaining clip/spring away to remove the glass but also you need to pull it back tight the other way after refitting as it fits into a notch at the back. Easily done with a length of strong wire that you can wrap around a few fingers and put a small hook on at the other end to get purchase on the eye of the clip/spring - my 'special tool' is made of garden wire.

Cheers, Duncan

Thanks for the advice, Im still fiddling to find the spot where all this just snaps into place!

This was pre me and yes i assumes someone whacked the mirror, i replaced the glass that was cracked but couldn't ever get it to fit right!

I kept meaning to buy a full replacement mirror (beware you need a cabriolet mirror though, Coupe one won't fit!)

*laughs*, yeh no worries. These things wil happen over 20 years or so
I was looking on rimmer brothers and any R8 other than coupe looks like it will fit.... Now all ive got to do is find an electric lhs one... unless i can swap the electric bits out of a rhs mirror perhaps? ;)

Question on this topic please - is the coupe mirror glass the same shape as the tourer ? On Rimmers they have a heated electric coupe R8 mirror. Mine is a tourer. I’d swap the glass rather than use the whole unit who wouldnt fit my car. All advice welcomed. Cheers. Matthew

I suspect they are different, I was sold a Cabby one from ebay being told it was from a Coupe.
The housings and back plates are swappable though.

This is cut n pasted from my post on the RCOC when I swapped mine over :

Remove the mirror from the housing, there's a small spring clip just visible along the top edge towards the outside, slide this outwards and the mirror and backing should come away, disconnect the heating elements.

Leaves this :


These's 3 small clips that hold the motor into the housing, these need to be removed, gently prise them off with a small screwdriver or pliers, I found a squirt of WD40 helped, try not to loose them.



Remove the spring that is hooked over the clip in the back of the mirror, this can be quite strong. The 3 clips that hold the motor to the case are visible on the LHS.



Everything should be quite loose now



Now you need to remove the 5 wires that control the mirror from the plug to allow everything to come apart.
These are just a push fit, held with a spring clip. Make a note of where each wire goes in the plug.
Looking at the plug end on, insert a paperclip (or similar) just above each pin and push, the wire should withdraw quite easily from the back of the plug, if it doesn't try again.
Once all 5 wires are free, the whole lot should come apart.



It looks as if phase 1 and 2 mirror internals are the same. I wanted to fit the mirror from a Cabby to my Coupe and used a later model of Coupe mirror to supply the mounting (thanks Jinxy).

As all the best manuals say, reassembly is just a case of reversing the procedure.