Does anyone know how to tighten the passenger mirror of an E46 M3? Several times while the car was under warranty, I had this problem and the dealer fixed it without comment each time. The housing seems to be loose. I can see it vibrating as I cruise down the road. It's really annoying, since everything is blurry. Now I'm at a new dealer, the car is out of warranty and they tell me there is no way to adjust the mirror. They tell me I have to replace the entire unit for a cost of several hundred dollars. I'm dubious as to their assertion that it can't be adjusted or otherwise tightened. Can anyone help?
Howdy 141509, I had and have this same problem on my E30 325ix. Short story: The "dealer fix" was to JBWeld the plastic outer cowl to the metal frame inside the housing which holds the mirror adjustment works, onto which the mirror itself is mounted. Long story: The mirror housing was loose and vibrating and I did nothing since the mirror itself functioned normally. A short while later, while driving along, I looked over and the mirror was gone. I went to the dealer to get a replacement mirror and the tech showed me that behind the mirror is a metal "plate" on which the adjustment device is mounted and which also has holes (about the diameter of a pencil) at each corner. On the inside of the housing, something, possibly very short plastic legs on the inside of the cowl, was supposed to extend through the holes (back to front of the plate -- front to back oriented to the car) at three of the corners and probably had a "nub" or rivet head to secure it to the mounting plate. Whatever they were, they had broken or worn away. At the top left corner of the mounting plate, the mirror housing (cowl, cowling ?) itself is built with an "L" shaped bracket whose nub or rivet snaps through its' hole from the front of the plate (to the back of this plate -- towards the front of the car) this leg, rivet, or nub was also gone. Their solution was to lay a patch of JBWeld about the size of a quarter over the plastic bracket to afix it to the mounting plate and a dollop of this epoxy, .large enough to ooze through the holes so as to fashon a nub, directly onto the inside of the mirror housing. This held ok for about a week before the whole thing started shaking again, the "nubs" of epoxy had broken off at the three corners, so on the second try the tech repeated the dollops and sniped the tip off the end of a sheet metal screw (very short, maybe 1 cm or 1/6 in.) which was then "screwed" into the plate's holes to "set" in the epoxy. Before reinstalling the mirror, we put a layer of two sided tape (the type I use for holding golf grips on the shaft) on the back of the mirror to replicate the sticky surface it had when new. This fix lasted TEN YEARS! Unfortunately, last week It started shaking again and the mirror was about to fall off while my son was driving but he noticed it and rescued the mirror. This time I will fix it myself but, before applying the JBWeld, we will clean the surface with a solvent and "rough up" the plastic so the eposy sticks to the inside of the mirror housing better (the dealer did not do this). The only tricky part is removal/installation of the mirror itself. You must use a fairly small screwdriver, inserted into the gap between the bottom of the mirror and its' housing. Locate some "teeth" (helps if you can look at a mirror at your dealer's parts department) which are pushed left to free and right to secure the mirror itself to the adjusting mechanism. I hope this helps. Love, Rudi
