This might be too exciting for this community, so trigger warning.
Last weekend I backed out of my garage haphazardly, and hit the side mirror on the garage frame. It bent the whole mirror forward and, even with my full body weight, would not go back into place. I took my car to a body shop and they said they would have to take the whole door apart and install a new mirror. Total estimate: $3900.
Figuring I had nothing to lose, I watched a YouTube video on how to take the mirror unit apart, which I did. I found the impingement that was blocking its movement, and pounded it with a flathead screwdriver and hammer until it popped back. Put the mirror housing back together, works good as new! Only one extra screw when I was done. I think I’ll get the large fries to reward myself.
I for one found this too exciting and it gave me a case of the vapors.
They always put those extra screws in there to throw you off.
Indeed! Like the time I reassembled my laptop, noticed an extra screw, and dissambled it again to find where it goes. Didn’t. Reassembled again, now two extra screws. Still works perfectly to this day.
I hit a moose with my pickup in the fall, and had to take the door off to straighten it. I removed the inside trim, put it on some railway ties and pressed down with the tractor loader bucker in the middle, it seemed to line up when I put it back on. Kicked some dents back out from the inside. Put a new mirror and door handle on it. Keeps out the wind.
Not sure if your car but taking a door apart and putting a new mirror on mine when I did the exact same thing was pretty easy.
Got a used mirror off of eBay for $60 and swapped it out in under a half hour. Hardest part was trusting that I wasn’t destroying the clips for the door card.
If I charged $3900 for it I’d be making almost eight grand an hour
It’s an Audi, meaning all parts are needlessly complex and legendarily expensive to fix. Part of their justification for the cost (and corroborated by another shop) is that the whole mirror unit would have to be replaced and calibrated for the ADAS functions. Sure, whatever.
Yeah, if it’s got cameras or sensors that makes sense. Mine didn’t have any of those, just some motors and a turn signal, and they still wanted $500 for a new one
Many large fries, you just granted yourself a budget of $3900. Just watch out for your heart, we don’t want to lose you.
Maybe a new PC instead?
I had to do something a bit similar when a kamikaze duck flew perpendicular to my car, straight into the driver side wing mirror, smashing the mirror while I was doing 100kph. Found an eBay replacement (for the mirror, not the duck) and almost good as new. The original one had some wires that were meant to make it tint or something, the replacement didn’t. Never seen it tint anyway.
Are we all just going to gloss over the fact that you’re not supposed to stick your duck in that?
That’s some fine work!
