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Gunslinger
Joined: Sat Nov 4th, 2017
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First up, I bought these with my money. They weren't sent to me, nor did anyone buy them for me. These were bought and paid for by me, at $200 plus shipping. Also note that I sometimes care about things that other's don't, and sometimes the opposite is true, where I simply don't care about what others make a big deal over. So, bear that in mind potential reader who is only here because this post came up under your search queries for these mirrors.
Before you continue, note that my tone changes a bit. 12 hour shift with crap-tacular sleep has.... less than ideal effects. This guy is about to get real picky, real quick. Grab a snack, or something. Or don't. I'm a post on the internet, not a cop.
{cranky rant}
First thing that caught my attention was that the box makes zero attempt at hiding what's inside. It's branded all over the outside exactly what it is. Not that this is a Sony or Apple product where the name and logo is instantly recognized by, oh, *everyone*. But, still, I found that odd. Quality of the packaging itself, could be better. A lot better. The cardboard is thin, and the styrofoam usage is minimal. Considering that we're shipping glass panes here, I expected some extra care taken with this. I've had vintage gas masks and other surplus shipped from Russia by an individual with better packaging. That is not a joke, either.
It does come with instructions, rather detailed ones at that. I gave them a quick read, and the instructions talk about reusing the backing plate, merely peeling the glass off the originals and sticking these on in place. Which, this is massively confusing because it comes with new backing plates. Not to mention, for $200, I expected the new backing plates to be already adhered. Not that I am incapable of doing so myself, but I feel that for the steep price of (again) $200, they could have done that for me. If this kit was $75, I wouldn't have said a thing about that.
Also, the adhesive used for attaching them.... Quite frankly I'm not hopeful. It appears to be some foam backed sticky tape cut to a specific shape, custom. Which, this appears to glue straight smack dab onto the heating element. The instructions themselves say to use heat to soften the glue on the old backing plates, and we're using some sort of adhesive to adhear these to the car by the element itself. That strikes me as *highly* counter-intuitive. I may wind up adding some extra epoxy to help keep these on, lest one comes off on the highway and shatters. I'm starting to understand why they also sell L and R separately.
The glass itself is wrapped in bubblewrap. Seems to be of reasonable quality. One thing immediately caught my eye though, that will get some attention before I even consider mounting these. The LED arrow, which itself seems well made, has the cheapest little connector on it. This type of connector I do not believe has the *slightest* bit of waterproofing or resistance to it at all. I can even see down into the PCB between it and the housing. I can very much see this design flaw filling with water in a heavy rainstorm, or car wash, and corroding then crapping out later.
Moving onto the heating element. Note the contacts. Some of them aren't covered *at all*, and what is covered feels to be similarly cheap rubbery silicone. Just barely picking at it with my non-existant fingernail feels like I could pull it off with no effort. It reminds me of RTV, but with no substance to it. Maybe dollar store hot glue. And this is directly on the *heating* element. I'm not sure how hot this will get, but we all know heat softens glues. Heat also makes a royal mess out of black electrical tape, as anyone whose taken apart a vehicle wiring harness knows.
The solder connections look OK to me. No whining there. The wires though. I stripped the ends, and.... they aren't copper. I scraped at the wire end with a razor knife and failed to reveal any copper, considering maybe that these were plated, maybe. No, it's aluminum. There's a reason we don't use aluminum for wire as standard. I have also heard many a tale of mobile homes burning to the ground because of crappy aluminum cables being used in place of copper. The wires on these just feel cheap all together.
I peeled back the layer over the viewing side of the glass, and the mirrors are nice and clear. That's the best I can say about these.
Maybe I'm being harsher because I can't sleep and therefor I'm getting cranky, but I stand by that for the price you pay for these, there's a lot to be desired in my eyes. I had hopes of something with some serious quality to it, through and through, and honestly I'm disappointed. These are going to need a few improvements before I even consider taking the glass out of my OEM mirrors.
Full Size Instructions for those who are curious.
I noticed there at the end that they actually specify RTV as something you'll need. They actually tell you to use it because apparently the "PSA" tape isn't enough? All that tells me is that they couldn't be bothered to actually find a better solution (Perhaps what OEM does?) and they just bandaid it by telling you to add more glue in the instructions. Feels absolutely, completely, lazy to me.
If it seems like I'm ragging on every little thing, I'll explain why. If this were a $50 or $75 kit from china, I'd be happy it was this good. But it's not. This is a $200 kit that is from a company who supposedly specializes in this. They only sell mirrors for a wide variety of vehicles. If you're a 1 trick pony, your 1 trick better be good. I'm also increasingly picky, because this project truck is my baby. I'm doing this without short-cuts, the right way the first time, with good parts for good money. I strongly believe they could have done better for the price myself (and at least 1 other member here) paid. I hope he got more quality than I feel I got.
{/cranky rant}
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1999 Ford Ranger XLT - 3.0 V6 4x4 - Loaded (Totaled) 143k. Rest in Peace, Gold Dust.