How to repair the mirrors on your V8 Vantage sun visors
Discussion
Ever since I have owned my V8 Vantage, one thing has always bugged me - the mirrors on the sun visors.
The problem was that the silvering on the mirrors had started to fail, meaning the mirrors looked a mess. So now the car is off the road for the winter, I thought I would try to do something about it.
Replacement visors are about £200 a pair for second-hand ones, or up to £600 for new ones - yikes! So I wondered if there was a cheaper way, and there is!
The mirrors on the early sun visors are just stuck in with glue, so with a wide flat spatula I was able to lever them off the sun visors. If you do, you will damage the silvering even more, so this is a one-way endeavour - you have been warned!
On getting the mirrors off, I was surprised to find that they are actually plastic, most likely perspex. Anyway, after cleaning them up it was time for the upgrade.
I bought some silvered wall tiles from Ebay. These are 6x4 inch, have an adhesive backing and are very thin and flexible.
A pack of four from Ebay was just £5.31 delivered. It only took about 10 minutes with a sharp Stanley knife to trim them to size and stick them to the FRONT of the mirrors. By doing this you have a clean surface and you can then glue them back in place. You might need to have one or two goes to make sure the mirror is absolutely flat on the plastic, otherwise it will act like one of those distorting mirrors at a fairground!
So for less than a tenner I have new sun visor mirrors. I’m not sure if this would work on the later mirrors with flaps, but I don’t see why not.
The problem was that the silvering on the mirrors had started to fail, meaning the mirrors looked a mess. So now the car is off the road for the winter, I thought I would try to do something about it.
Replacement visors are about £200 a pair for second-hand ones, or up to £600 for new ones - yikes! So I wondered if there was a cheaper way, and there is!
The mirrors on the early sun visors are just stuck in with glue, so with a wide flat spatula I was able to lever them off the sun visors. If you do, you will damage the silvering even more, so this is a one-way endeavour - you have been warned!
On getting the mirrors off, I was surprised to find that they are actually plastic, most likely perspex. Anyway, after cleaning them up it was time for the upgrade.
I bought some silvered wall tiles from Ebay. These are 6x4 inch, have an adhesive backing and are very thin and flexible.
A pack of four from Ebay was just £5.31 delivered. It only took about 10 minutes with a sharp Stanley knife to trim them to size and stick them to the FRONT of the mirrors. By doing this you have a clean surface and you can then glue them back in place. You might need to have one or two goes to make sure the mirror is absolutely flat on the plastic, otherwise it will act like one of those distorting mirrors at a fairground!
So for less than a tenner I have new sun visor mirrors. I’m not sure if this would work on the later mirrors with flaps, but I don’t see why not.
LTP said:
And, just for information and to answer your surprise, the reason the mirrors are plastic is head impact testing - the testing authorities tend to take a dim view of shards of glass scattered around the interior and embedded in the crash dummies' heads.
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