Expected better with faulty wing mirror

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glojo

Hardcore MB Enthusiast
Joined
Sep 15, 2004
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Location
Torquay
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S211 Sprinter 213CDI, & the new T-class
My wife was complaining about the electric wing mirror not behaving and no one dares misbehave where my wife is concerned.

On removing the suspect mirror I found three broken wires. I am not complaining about this as the car is sixteen years old and those poor mirrors are folded everytime the engine is switched off but.....

What I am complaining about is all three of the broken wires were coated with black plastic!!!!

I am no electrician and I had the mirror, the soldering iron etc on a tray on my chest, so it was a case of re-soldering these broken wires. I had some extra flexible wire we bought from Maplins many years ago so I at least used 'white', 'green' and 'yellow' coloured wires for the repair but I am guessing the wires will not be connected properly :( I am fairly confident I have one of those wires connected properly but there is an even chance the other two are wrong :)

WHY, why use the same coloured wires? I expect this from BMW but Mercedes-Benz!!!! Tsk, tsk, tsk
 
Colour coding as from the factory:
 

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Colour coding as from the factory:
Hi Diesel
I am no electrician but the wing mirror has a loom of numerous coloured wires but when I removed the mirror to inspect it, there were at least three black wires, completely seperate from the group of coloured wires. All of these black wires were 'broke'. I was faced with six ends all smiling at me as they needed solderiing and I had no idea what wire went where. What are the odds of getting it right? Yup, I have soldered the wires and all is working BUT....

I am stuck getting the glass back onto the motor. Yes I have figured out how to get the glass back onto the moving base but be blowed if I can get the wires to reach their pins on the reverse of the glass :(
 
I would think that you have built the mirror up and trapped the wires for the heating element and now they are too short.
 
I would think that you have built the mirror up and trapped the wires for the heating element and now they are too short.
That is my thinking but the mirror is still on my bed with the outer case removed. The ONLY logical option is that the wires are somehow trapped but all I did was simply slide off the connectors. I have asked my nephew to come over tomorrow to see if he can spot what I have done wrong :(
 
Hi Diesel
I am no electrician but the wing mirror has a loom of numerous coloured wires but when I removed the mirror to inspect it, there were at least three black wires, completely seperate from the group of coloured wires. All of these black wires were 'broke'. I was faced with six ends all smiling at me as they needed solderiing and I had no idea what wire went where. What are the odds of getting it right? Yup, I have soldered the wires and all is working BUT....

I am stuck getting the glass back onto the motor. Yes I have figured out how to get the glass back onto the moving base but be blowed if I can get the wires to reach their pins on the reverse of the glass :(

glojo, I'm pretty sure you have soldered the wires correctly. The mirror does have three black wires, which is not typical for Mercedes. One of them should be on a different harness, it is on the door control unit connector #1. Perhaps not easy to spot at the mirror side?

The other two black wires are from door control unit connector #6 and go the the e1 bulb (which is an option but present on your car). For these two it does not matter if they get swapped.

If it is difficult to find which wire comes from which door control module connector, you might figure it out based on the wire diameter. The e1 bulb wires are 0.5 mm2 while the third black wire (to m1 mirror adjustment motor) is slightly smaller, 0.35 mm2.

If any of the black wires were mixed with each other, you would have lost either mirror adjustment functionality or the e1 bulb (I think the locator light).

Just hope you can figure out why wires are not long enough.
 
Hi Diesel
Your wise words are spot on. I temporarily connected the wing mirror and confirmed that all movements worked, including the folding option and then I handed control to my nephew to sort out the 'shrunken' wires.

We have absolutely no idea of what was going on because with those two wires being located in the position of these pictures. No way were they long enough. My nephew prised that steel spring type objest away from that metal pin and then managed to pull both wires out of that location and hey presto, they had now grown in length :) :) Or to be more honest, they were now able to clip onto the rear of the glass. Having done that, it was a two minute job to refit the mirror and now my wife can play with the thing to her hearts content :)
 

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