Successfully repaired severely damaged w211 folding mirror mechanism

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gtahhh

Active Member
Joined
Mar 15, 2012
Messages
67
Car
E320 CDI Estate (W211)
Hi, I just thought I'd share my experience of repairing my folding mirror. I clipped another mirror in a narrow street. Really not very hard but enough to break the motor/gearbox part, meaning the mirror just flapped about. The only other damage was a small crack in the indicator lens. I thought that it would require an entire new unit but I was able to take it all apart to get the motor and gearbox unit out. Search on this site or the web for how to clip the mirror cover off. After that, it's all very straight forward to get apart. The damaged motor looked like this:

2012-03-25211140.jpg


As you can see the gear box is totally smashed and the gears have fallen out. Despite this it was easy enough to Araldite it together. I then used bits of wire sunk into more glue to reinforce the casing. The gear teeth required a bit of work with a fine file so they ran well again. Then I put it back together. The only difficulty here was squeezing it up tight enough so the hinge pin could be put back in. I used a cable-tie tourniquet to pull it up before tapping the pin back in. I put it back on the car and all has worked smoothly for the last 2 months.

Since doing this I've spotted that you can get new, genuine MB motors for about £50, so even if you smash yours and the motor isn't repairable, then I can vouch for the motor replacement being straight forward.

-g
 
I saw them on ebay.
 
I am having a similar issue with both my side mirrors on 2006 w211 (E350), where the tall cylindrical gear has worn and slips.
As @gtahhh also mentioned on yours having to file the gear, my understanding is this is a very common problem, yet I've not been able to source any replacements (other than complete mirror assembly new from a dealer, or used from a junkyard).
From Gtahhh's picture, this would be the gear:
1609699304902.png

Does anyone know where to source these, maybe even the complete set of gears just to replace them all as a complete rebuild.
Thanks.
 
I am having a similar issue with both my side mirrors on 2006 w211 (E350), where the tall cylindrical gear has worn and slips.
As @gtahhh also mentioned on yours having to file the gear, my understanding is this is a very common problem, yet I've not been able to source any replacements (other than complete mirror assembly new from a dealer, or used from a junkyard).
From Gtahhh's picture, this would be the gear:
View attachment 106920

Does anyone know where to source these, maybe even the complete set of gears just to replace them all as a complete rebuild.
Thanks.

The other alternative I've looked at is changing it over to the W212 model, but haven't found how to do this without having to swap over the doors. This is because of the mounting on the w212 is recessed into the door.

So, this would be from this W211 mirror:
1609700440755.png

To this newer (recessed mount) W212 mirror:
1609700479546.png


Did anyone find some kind of kit to allow mounting the w212 mirror on a w211 door?
Thanks
 

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