Power mirror weirdness....

[King_V]

Ok, this one's got me a bit puzzled.

My power mirror works 100% on the passenger side, but when I switch the stick over to operate the driver's side, it's a little strange.

The tilt-up/tilt-down seems to work just fine, but tilt-left/tilt-right is dead.

I'm not quite sure where to begin. I was thinking it couldn't be at the joystick because if it were, I'd have problems with the passenger-side mirror, too, correct?

Where should I start on this?

Thanks.

[crown vic muscle]

does it sound like the motor in the mirror is running when you try to move it left to right? i would look at the switch itself, but would suspect wiring

[King_V]

Didn't occur to me to listen for that before. Just ran out and checked, though. No noises whatsoever when doing a left-right adjustment, so the motor's not even running.

[gadget73]

Could still be the switch, but the mirror itself is probably more likely. If you've got a spare switch, plug it in and see what happens.

[86VickyLX]

I had a similar problem after taking the door panel off once, the passenger side mirror didn't go left or right, it turned out to be the wiring. Like gadget said if you have an extra switch, plug it in. The mirror switch plug varied from between the years though. I don't know what years of mirror switches are compatible with your car without cutting and splicing wires. And if you find that it's not the switch, you can easily pop out the glass and remove the motor.


It's actually pretty easy. What you want to do it get a thin screwdriver, and put it behind the glass, gently pry the glass away from the mirror housing, you will hear something like a scratching record, don't worry about that, those are just the little threaded rods that attach to the mirror and the motor. There should be two of those rods in the mirror. If not then the other one is still in the motor, easy enough to see. When the glass is out, please note that there is a cross like thing in the middle of the glass, that is to help keep the glass straight. You can see on the motor that there is a place for it in the middle as well. Now you can then access the 3 screws for the motor, and unplug it. When you get your new motor, put it back in place, and then what I did was set the little threaded rods in the motor, a little bit. Once they're both back in you can push the mirror in. Make sure that the mirror clicks in and try it out, if it doesn't move smoothly then the cross thing is not in it's proper place.