Door mirrors

[Mickyw]

Hi everybody just wondered if any body else has had this problem, and if they have what did they do, and how did they go about it. While giving the car a much needed wash and polish, last week I found that the drivers side door mirror , the plastic piece that wing mirror is attatched to the door by has started to corrode really badly in fact as I was trying to apply the black wax to the piece under the mirror frame it just started to crumble to white powder !!! I had a look at the parts catalogue and it seems to be the main part that is fixed inside and outside the door itself it seems to be seperate part but I cannot find one any where?? Looks like might have to buy the whole unit !!!!  the prices for these are rather dear, wanted to buy new really !! Other options are scrap yards or e bay anyone got any suggestions or a piece laying around the garage ? Thanks in advance

[sgould]

Take it off and repaint it!

The whole mirror comes off in one piece after removing some internal trim.  Then the mirror glass comes off by releasing the clip behind and the other bits unclip and unscrew.  See the sticky topic at the top of the 9-3 forum here.

http://www.saabtechtalk.com/forum/index.php?topic=973.0

[Mickyw]

Thanks for the reply , but I probably didn't explain it very well.  The bit that is crumbling is the bit that fades, triangular in shape and fitted to the door frame. Not painted at all !! Plastic is just turning to dust !!

[Saabman]

It's not plastic, it's probably originally a powder coating over the cast mirror body that suffers from galvanic corrosion causing the black coating to flake off. As suggested before only course of action would be to strip the mirror down and repaint the body 

[dav]

As saabman says its corosion of the alloy. Mine were not very nice at all so I took them off the car and performed a highly succesfull re spray job on them.

Once off the car I masked of the whole of the plastic mirro assembly with 2 inch 3m tape. I then took of a rubber seal and sanded the black frame down using first coarse sand aper then wet and dry to get a smooth base. At least 3 coats of primer then some satin black paint.Again wet and dry between coats.The last coat was a dream and it does look like new.
I cant recall the paint I used at present but the primer and paint was same maker and I think I got it from one of the big chains like focus etc.Not B+Q though.
It really is an easy job and gives much satisfaction.Just mask off well and prepare thoroughly. Also dont rush the paint coats.

[Mickyw]

Hi Dav
Thank you for that, will have to try that just need the time and the weather, will post some pics when I do it