Recently both power side mirrors in my 2003 Hyundai Santa Fe quit working. I thought it was odd that both stopped working at the same time, and assume it is something common to both rather than each mirror dying independently and simultaneously.
My first guess was the fuse, but I’ve checked what I believe to be the correct fuse and it looks fine. Also, it appears the radio is on the same fuse as the mirrors and the radio is working fine. (And just to be sure, I pulled that fuse and the radio quit working.)
So my next guess is maybe the control panel on the driver’s side door? The mirror control is in a cluster with the door lock/unlock and window lock buttons, and those are all working OK. I’m not crazy about the thought of taking the whole door apart to get to the wiring for that control.
Any ideas how to approach this or what else to look at?
Did someone just wash/detail the car (leads to #3, below)?
Sometimes the mirrors on my car can be physically pressed/moved into a position from which the electric motor can’t overcome and move. This has happened after I cleaned the mirror, pressing on it while buffing (from #2, above). If I manually press the mirror itself (not the housing, nor the button) around to be more in-line, then the electric button will work again. YMMV.
Check other fuses. Cars often have running design changes that aren’t consistent with the generic owner’s manual. My '05 Volvo probably has 3-4 significant variations in fusing and I have to check all the fuses in a group to find the blown one, sometimes.
OTOH, I just had this problem with that very car. **Shunpiker **got it: manually cycle the mirror in and out of their “breakaway” position. Cycle the power folding option, if it has one. (I never have figured out quite what that’s for…) Manually move the mirrors a few clicks in their housings. See if that has reset the connections. In my case, I think it was a partial “breakaway” that disturbed the mirror connections or put it into some kind of safe mode. Fuse was fine.
I have had problems in the past with one or the other mirror getting stuck, and manually adjusting it would knock it loose. But usually when that happened, I could hear the motor or servo working and the mirror would do a sort of click-click-click as it was trying to move. Now, they just seem to be completely dead.
I will check the other fuses, just in case. I know on the fuse diagram there was one for heated mirrors, which I don’t believe I have. And there were one or two fuses on the diagram that only had Korean, no English.
WAG here but I’d guess that your power locks and windows are fused differently than your mirror. I would look for a broken wire in the bundle that goes from the dash to the drivers door very near the hinge. Lost electric window power that way in February in Wisconsin with the window down 25 miles from home. That bundle gets a lot of flexing over 13 years.
In my 2000 Mitsubishi, the entire power window/lock/mirror control cluster is a module that clips into the armrest and unclips without disassembling anything. (Press the clip on one end in with a flat tool, lift it clear of the hole edge, and pull it out to expose the wiring harness connectors etc.)
Unfortunately, you’re probably going to have to take apart the door to figure out where it’s gone south.
A friend of mine had a mini-van that had a rough spot of metal on the frame behind the door, a manufacturing defect. Over the years, the wiring harness rubbed against the rough metal and eventually wore a hole through the wiring harness and started shorting out the wires.
Your problem could be a broken connection near the fuse box, or it could be a bad connection in the switch cluster on the door, or it could be anywhere in between, even in the wiring harness somewhere. The only way to figure it out is to start poking around with a multimeter to see exactly where the power is going and not going. Sometimes you need to check the connections while you are trying to operate the mirror. A damaged connection might read a full voltage at no load, but once you apply a load the voltage drops significantly over the bad connection.
Diagnosing power window problems is often similar.
With a little luck you might be able to get the switch cluster out without disassembling the door. Depends on the vehicle.
Clearly you never park parallel to the kerb on a narrow street, or in a car park with inadequate space for a fully grown car.
When I drove trucks I had a colleague who managed to tear three door mirrors off parked cars while driving down a narrow road with cars parked both sides. Do you know how much it costs to replace those things?
No, I don’t - I do understand theoretically why it would be a good idea to fold in mirrors on a vehicle as big as an XC90, I’ve never had to park in a situation that warranted it.
I worked in a big industrial-campus building where my department’s windows overlooked the drive-through to the rear lot. There was parking alongside it, and my lead writer parked his '53 Buick there (from memory; anyway, one of those tank-like postwar cars).
One day we watched a full-size semi inch down the lane, squeezing by the Buick. I said, “You know, Fred, if he hits your car…”
Heh. Mirrors quit working, windshield has a big crack on the passenger side, the clear coat is peeling on the paint (I tell my wife the car has moderate to severe plaque psoriasis )… Maybe it’s time to suck it up and get a new car.
)… Maybe it’s time to suck it up and get a new car.