Toyota Signal Mirrors

[cairo94507]

Congratulations on your mirrors; I know you will feel much safrer as you drive around now and change lanes and make turns; I sure do.

[prberg]

Thanks to everyone for their great info about this upgrade... couldn't have done it without your help! I spent most of my sunday getting my mirrors upgraded so now I have signal mirrors! I'm happy with the mirrors over all but a few comments.

I opted for the cheaper 'ebay' mirrors. The good news is that they were available in Seaside Pearl. When I got them I didn't get any harness... just the covers with 2 wires coming out of them. Do I need to put a fuse in there somewhere? I wasn't real happy with the quality. They didn't fit that well on my old housings. There were spots where the 2 didn't match up that well and there are small openings between the 2 pieces. Also I was hoping they would have more LED's in them. The whole front part of the mirror doesn't light up (should it?) . It seems to get some light from the LED's on the edge but I had hoped it would light up entirely. Does the Sigma mirror have LED's in the front?

I wondered if Doc or someone with the 'factory' signal mirrors could take a closer picture? I wondered if the seam is perfectly smooth or if there are gaps like on mine. Also if they are brighter/have more LED's than ours. I think I counted 6 LED's on the side.

Running those wires was not an easy chore. Also the factory wires that you have to tap into are quite short so there is not alot of room for mistakes. My wiring job wasn't that great but they seem to be working so that's good. After going through all that work I was wondering to myself if I should have gotten the Sigma mirrors as they would look better?

thanks for everyones contribution... great help! I'm going to take a better picture soon...

-Peter B

[Syclone]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(vinny @ Nov 19 2006, 05:11 PM) [snapback]351801[/snapback]</div>

Well, I finally installed my Sigma signal mirrors! It took me several hours over the weekend to finish the job. Thanks to DocVijay and EVnut's threads....of disassembling the door panels and dash....the installation went without a hitch!

The only difficult part of the job was threading the wiring through the rubber covering which protects the wires between the doors. I managed to perform this almost impossible feat by threading a stiff (thick gauge wire) wire through on end...and patiently manipulating it to the other side to the inside of the car. Then, by taping the end of the wires to the end of the guide wire, I pulled it through. Replacing the rubber boot was not hard at all. Now I have a very clean install!

I will post pics soon.

Vince.
[/b]

Several of us in the Long Island Prius Group installed the Ebay mirrors. The came with a harness that was, apparently, made for the Japanese right hand drive version of the car. I guess that the distributer decided to omit the harness to avoid confusion. The only part of the harness that was useful was the part shown in earlier posts on this thread - with the 2 fuse holders. Again, as illustrated, we used ScotchLok press on connectors to join the wiring.

Getting the wire thru the boot was definitely a Pain, but by the 2nd car, I had it down to about 10 minutes for each boot

As far as the fit, we saw no difference between the old covers and the new ones. The 6 indicator LED's are in the forward corner of the cover. At night, the entire area lights more than sufficiently. I would have liked the light to wrap around a little further back like the more expensive units, but it's no big deal.

If you have a chance, take a picture of the area that doesn't fit well. I will compare it with mine.

By the way, I would put a fuse in each of the lines, if I were you.

[prberg]

It definitely got easier as I went along. I even had the 2nd wire fished and realized that I forgot to run it through the hole in the door so I had to re-fish it again but it was only took me like 10 minutes. Do you know what kind of fuse I should install? I'm not sure what would be needed to protect the LED's (or is it to protect the car?). I'll try to post a Close up picture of the fit so we can compare.

thanks,

-Peter B

[cairo94507]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(prberg @ Nov 27 2006, 11:21 PM) [snapback]354695[/snapback]</div>

It definitely got easier as I went along. I even had the 2nd wire fished and realized that I forgot to run it through the hole in the door so I had to re-fish it again but it was only took me like 10 minutes. Do you know what kind of fuse I should install? I'm not sure what would be needed to protect the LED's (or is it to protect the car?). I'll try to post a Close up picture of the fit so we can compare.

thanks,

-Peter B
[/b]

Peter,
I would say just make sure your covers snapped into place and secured with the screws. I had to play with mine a little bit to get them to fit correctly but they did snap into place and appear to fit as good as the factory mirror backs did. I really do not know if you actually need the fuse since these are LED lights and use very little power. Good luck.

[prberg]

Here are some examples of the fit of the new covers. Not sure how well you can see but they don't seem to line up quite right. I did play with them for awhile trying to see if I could get them to snap together. It's not a huge deal... at night they look great.. but during the day you can see that they are not quite as good as the factory mirrors. Just wondering if I should have gone with the Sigma mirrors.... oh well.

[cairo94507]

Well in looking at your mirrors they do not seem to fit as tight as mine do. Although I admit that mine do not fit as perfectly as the factory ones did. Were this other than my daily driver, I would have likely gone with Sigma, assuming those are original factory Toyota mirror backs. Don't get me wrong, I love myPrius and take excellent care of it. But I am not going to lose sleep over the minor fit imperfections. If someone ever whacks my mirror off the car and I have to have it replaced I will try the Sigmas. Smile, the signal mirrors are very cool.

[mrbigh]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(prberg @ Nov 28 2006, 09:45 PM) [snapback]355082[/snapback]</div>

Here are some examples of the fit of the new covers. Not sure how well you can see but they don't seem to line up quite right. I did play with them for awhile trying to see if I could get them to snap together. It's not a huge deal... at night they look great.. but during the day you can see that they are not quite as good as the factory mirrors. Just wondering if I should have gone with the Sigma mirrors.... oh well.
[/b]

I haven't paid such a close attention to the AFTERMARKET replacement covers installed on my car like you pointed out but t, I think that the most important key in this is the paint color matching and finish of it than a very narrow fitting gaps around, most noticeable with a magnifying glass at 1 inch, including the scraped black plastic frame probably damaged trying to remove the original cover.

Be happy, these look great! a foot apart and add an economic safety feature to our precious cars. My 2 cents

[drmanny3]

I just installed the mirrors today. It took me about 3 and 1/2 hours. The hardest part was pulling the wires through the door into the cabin. But I managed. I did do something that might help the rest of you. I was concerned about the fit. So what I did was place some grease on the tabs of the new outer shell. By focusing on the top of the mirror (the part easily seen) I was able to snap the tabs into place leaving no gaps. So for those of you who were not successful, you can pop out the mirror and take the two screws out and see if the shell comes out easily. If so it was not locked in place by the tabs. I would add a bit of grease or vasiline and try again. Both my shells snapped into place with a loud noise. The top tab is a very tight fit. Well just my two cents. I really love the signal mirrors and highly recommend the mod.

Manny

[slvr_phoenix]

I have a few questions:

1 - Am I right in understanding that these wires you're tapping into are the original turn signal wires?

2 - Can anyone give electrical specs like the voltage, amps, watts of the lines cut into before mods, after mods, and what the LED mirror signals themselves use?

3 - If someone were to buy a badly made eBay knockoff is it possible to draw so much power that the turn signals don't work anymore or you blow a fuse somewhere or something equally bad?