I guess my experience is dated: the newest car I’ve ever owned was made in 1989.
While most of the cars I’ve owned had a way to fold the mirrors flush against the window, in every case this was the same way you adjusted the mirror. So you could fold them flush, but then you would have to manually put them back where they were to begin with.
Let me try to be clearer.
The mirror could be tipped around a pivot mounted on the back of the mirror, and that pivot was at the end or an arm that could be moved back and forth (and often the point where the arm attached to the car body could be rotated). This was all part of how you could adjust the mirror to give you a proper view for your preferred seat position and height.
You could also move that arm until it held the mirror flat against the window glass.
As the position of the arm when the mirror was in use was designed to be set to user preference, there was no way for there to be a mechanical indicator that you had put it back where it had been: that was just somewhere along the arc it was designed to be adjusted along. And folding the mirror flat against the window usually involved changing its position on the pivot.
Putting it back after it had been folded like that was a pain in the butt.
I learned a little trick for rapidly re-finding my preferred mirror adjustment: I’d get the mirrors eactly right, then put some tape on the part that adjust such that there was a tiny line that went onto both peices masked by the tape. Then I painted the area with White-Out. When it was dry, I’d remove the tape and varnish the area with clear nail polish. Then if my mirror got messed up, all I had to do was line the white lines back up and everything was exactly where I wanted it.
Just to update you on how it’s done nowadays on upper-range cars …
In a modern Mercedes, the entire mirror housing assembly is on an electric motor. When you unlock or start the car the mirrors deploy to the extended position. When you shut down, or push a special button on the mirror controls, they retract mostly flush with the body.
Besides that, each actual reflective mirror is motor-driven in up-down & left-right. A small toggle inside lets you adjust the mirrors to your liking. And once set, the car associates the mirror settings with your key fob. So as you approach the car, it resets the mirrors (and seats and air conditioning and radio) to your settings. If your spouse approaches the car with his/her fob, the car instead sets itself up for their preferences.
The mirrors also have internal heaters, turn signals, and sonar sensors that detect cars cruising in your blind spot. Some even have mini windshield washer-like devices.
You can buy a perfectly serviceable used car for the price of one replacement mirror. Not including labor to replace it.
I seldom, seldom, seldom, seldom, seldom, seldom, drive my wife’s car because the pre-flight to get it in a semi-safe condition for driving with me in the pilots seat takes longer than what it would take for C-310 buried in a snow bank at 2°F with no Herman Nelson available.
Seems like just about all modern cars have electric motorized windows that roll up or down at the push of a button. I’m waiting for a car that has that button itself motorized. So I would only have to push a button to push the button to roll the windows.
LOL I use this trick for backing into parking spots, I park about a foot away from the curb or white line, then use tape to mark the bottom edge of the curb on my bubble mirrors, then another piece of tape with a thin line between them and I paint with white nail polish. Makes backing into spaces without going to far stupid simple.