The mirror assembly comes with the cover detached, so I think I will be OK wiuth my OE covers. My passenger OE cover is cracked tho. I may get the new one shot.

The biggest trouble will be moving the harness from mirror to the other- if the plugs back to the car are even the same. :dunno:

Welp- My last 6hrs was spent inside the guts of my OE mirror. I determined that the new mirror assembly would physically fit. The harness back to the car is the same. To retain the auto dimming, heated glass, I would have had to remove the new mirror from its arm completely. That would have meant splicing ~11 or so wires while adding a few more for the dimming and puddle lights inside my OE covers. The new assemblies do not have puddle lamps. Not a huge deal.

In the end, I decided to find the mirror gear that I ripped off at the salvage yard and see about replacing gears. I found and swapped the gears. I also found entirely new gears and housings on Ebay. The most difficult part of the swap looks to be removing the door panel.

My biggest objextive was to have a mirror that doesn't just move where it wants on accell/decell. I accomplished that. But I will order the eBay kit and see about tackling my mirrors again soon enough.

Rock Auto was gracious in their return policy. I have boxed and printed a label at my expense to ship back.

Conclusion:

They have a few assemblies to choose from. Some are more expensive, but nowhere near as bad as the dealer. I found the unit metal and solid.

The three bolt mounts on these mirrors is the same. I believe the harness back to the drive window switch is also the same, whether all of the wires are there or not depending on options.

Check for gloss vs matte black. (Mine were gloss)
Check for dimming. These are not.This is the key mirror mount difference. I have aspheric glass and did not want to lose it
They are heated.

OP:
just pull the wiring conection, for dimming, apart. Its behind the mirror glass (grey connector behind glass) and then just silicone your current mirrors into place at the hinge.

The next step in this adventure has arrived! For just $160 on eBay, I sourced an auto-dimming, heated, unit with glass, cover, high gloss trim with puddle light. First impressions are that the gears in this unit are not stripped and that it will hold firm. :thumbup:

And now, I *do* have extra driver side mirror glass. Heated and dimming. OP. if your glass is delaminated (or whatever), let me know. $20 or actual shipping costs. I'm not doin anything with it. :dunno:

Welp. Turns out that 1st impressions are worth the time they take to birth. The eBay mirror showed up with a significant portion of the part broken. (see attached) That hole on the edge is where there oughta be a notch. :banghead:

As for the gears, they were certainly not stripped. They were fused together from rust. Yet another :banghead: Finally, the eBay micro switch appeared repairable until the brittle wires snapped right at the assembly. Ug. I had to solder and heat shrink wires for the OE micro switch, the junkyard gears and my OE folding mirror motor. UG-a-licious. :rolleyes:

I used Permatex 'plastic/metal/your fingers' 5 minute curing weld stuff on the door panel- a bit of a side project. I discovered at the top of the panel plastic door mount along the base of the window had separated completely from the door panel. 'Janky' doesn't do justice to the feeling of leaving that shit falling apart and unglued while I awaited eBay mirror bits. :tapping: But that Permatex weld appears pretty solid. We'll see how it goes when I remove the door panel next time.

So, I ended up using

• my OE mirror arm (with a notch, instead of a gaping hole),
• the eBay high gloss trim piece (one fewer rock chip than mine),
• my OE/blue mirror covers and gloss trim. (buy any color. Yours will transfer)
• the junkyard mirror gears,
• the eBay glass motor, glass mount and harness
  Oh- and I also used
• the eBay part's puddle light. (it's the little things) I only noticed that the body shop painted over the puddle light when they shot the mirror cover years ago. It's unfortunately not rare when a rookie move in the paint booth is over-looked by a really old fncker (me) who just wants his 16yr old car back. :rolleyes:

:( Three mirrors into one. :popcorn:

I am Tha-RILLED to share that my Frankenstein homologation actually works! They dim... They don't wobble... and when I hit the little "I don't care that I parked too close to an F250" button, the mirrors stay folded in. :thumbup:

OK- Bonus material:

The OE mirror switch. I noticed while I was testing function along every possible silly step, that when I mounted the driver's door switch into its home flush with the door panel, suddenly the mirrors would stop working! W(in-T-*actual*)F!? So, diddling with the white plug would show me power by the lights under the switch buttons when moved a certain way. We have a physical problem, obviously. And where the plug is sat will affect it. Now, how do we make the plug sat where it will complete the circuit?

It's important to note that the white plug on the drivers door switch is back to the car- not the mirror- that's a black plug that we had to Humpty Dumpty so we could thread it through the tiny holes in the stupid mirror assembly.

Anyway, after a day of making mirrors do things they weren't designed to do with one another, and fiddling with what looked like a simple loose connection, I conjured up a fix:

About 1.25" of cut off zip tie. :nanana: Yep.. Wedge that little bit-o-plastic between the head of the white plug, just inside the locking mechanism and you'll find yourself rewarded with a solid power connection. For how long? Who knows! But drivers side switches are left behind in most yards, so they're everywhere.

Since I now have a graduate degree in how these silly things work, I am set to repair the micro switch on my wife's 2004. Hopefully, a little pressure by cleaning and squeezing the metal bit and some sealant will do the trick. :popcorn:

Also, I think it's important to share:

I have concerns that if I DO get my other E53 working with functioning, non-wobbly mirrors that dim and do all the sh!t they're supposed to... If I *do* get this done.. I fear some sort of apocalyptic reckoning with a 25yr old German prophecy:

"And in the end days, a man will own 2 E53's with fully functioning mirrors."

All I'm sayin is.. If I crack that trim ring on the white one and find a repairable micro switch, the 4th Horseman might just be released. Hug your family. I'm just doing what feels necessary. :p: