Door mirrors, as worn by the 9-5.
Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin.
From the top, as everyone will recognise, are the three faces of the 9-5. There is an original 9-5 (separate front grille and bumper), a facelift 9-5 estate, a facelift 9-5 saloon (both with one-piece bumper and grille), and a Dame Edna.
Please note the door mirrors. The first two (let's call it mirror type A) have the "rounded" housing with a near-vertical break in the join to the body (though they do hinge horizontally, with rather like a kitchen cupboard hinge action).
The second two (type B) have the housing with a pronounced crease and a near-horizontal hinge line (and the folding action is actually more pivot than hinge).
As far as I can tell electric folding is not related to type of housing. Mine are manual folders.
Until an hour ago, I thought type A was only fitted to the first face, and type B fitted from the facelift to the end. Clearly this isn't the case. Google Images (other search engines are available) has many examples showing mirror type A fitted to facelift cars. It seems Saab changed the mirrors from A to B sometime during the life of the facelift version.
Why all this? Well, a week or so ago a bloke in a Volkswagen Polo clipped my offside door mirror (type B, on a late facelift pre-Edna model) and smashed the housing. To give him his due, he confessed all to his insurers and they are paying for the repair. A day after showing my car to the repairers they phoned to say they'd got the mirror (
), bring the car back and it'd be fitted while I waited. Guess what? Yes, they fitted a type A.
After politely pointing out the error of their ways, and saying I'm not interested what their computer said, I left it with them to get the right one. I'm not holding my breath.
It just looks odd as it is, so I'm not prepared to accept this half-job. I didn't break my mirror, so I'm not going to compromise on this, other than I am prepared to have the type A left on the car, provided they fit one on the nearside too, but I haven't told the repairer yet. In its favour, the type A has a plastic black door fillet triangle, which won't corrode like the alloy one on the type B - and my remaining nearside one is severely corroded.
Against type A, the mirror itself is a little smaller, doesn't have the adjustment range, and doesn't seem to be able to fold forward as well as back, so more susceptible to damage than type B (ha ha!).
(If I offer the repairer the option of replacing my remaining mirror with a type A, at least I'd avoid having to refurbish the alloy door fillet.)
Now, does anyone have any experience of trying to find a type B mirror? A good trawl of the web has been fruitless. Type A seem to be readily available.
Any comments or observations to make?
Thanks in advance, apologies for a long post, and acknowledgements to any copyrights on the images - fair use, not for profit, etc.
