E39 awful wing mirrors?

[RWD cossie wil]

I own an 02 plate 530d, it is a fantastic car all told, but one thing that I find really problematic is the wing mirrors are AWFUL for parking? The car is an auto, so I'm not sure if it's meant to have an automatically dipping nearside mirror, but when reverse is selected, it does not move. I am not sure if it is even fitted, as I have tried the selector switch on the door in both positions, but it still does not work? But as a general opinion, does anyone else really struggle with parallel parking due to zero rear corner visibility?

[rassi]

IIRC the mirror would only dip automatically if you have electric seats/memory pack. Visibility for me was not a problem but also had pdc to help out - the Touring if anything is easier to place than the saloon.

[MarkwG]

The auto dip only features if you have the memory seats etc, IIRC. If you have that, it only operates when the mirror selector switch is set to the drivers side. Either way, the mirror should still move in any direction when the position switch is pressed, which is what I do in vehicles that don't have that feature...?

[RWD cossie wil]

No memory seats, I do manually adjust the mirror when I need to, but still find parking vis very poor. I have PDC, it's good but very over-cautious regarding distances.

[dan5oclocksmith]

RWD cossie wil said:

No memory seats, I do manually adjust the mirror when I need to, but still find parking vis very poor. I have PDC, it's good but very over-cautious regarding distances.

I *think* it is possible to get your car coded so that the PDC sensors will display the distance to the object through the OBC. Something like that. Ask the question over on forum.bmw5.co.uk, as that's where I think I saw it mentioned.