Electrically folding wing mirrors?!

[K.I.T.T.]

Managed to find this:



Did we ever have these as an option in the UK? And has anyone got any part numbers for them? I reckon they'd be quite nifty

Ash

[zedzo]

friends Ibiza Fr has them and that switch not sure we could do it

[K.I.T.T.]

Brilliant...so Ibiza owners get them as an option and we don't?! That's retarded

Still...may be possible to retrofit? I'll do a bit of reading

Ash

[ihpj]

Would be interesting to know; unusual that its offered on UK SEATs but not cross-platform.

[K.I.T.T.]

Well I did a bit of reading (as opposed to working on my coursework, but meh ) and the UK Ibizas definitely had them as an option. Although, two (pairs) of things would be needed...technically three, but I'll get onto that later.

First of all the wing mirrors themselves. Not sure even though they share the same platform, the Ibiza mirrors would be a direct fit onto the Polo body. The motors that fold the mirrors are in the mirrors themselves (duh), but the mirror housings are the same for electrically folding and manual folding mirrors (On the Golf that is, I'm working on the assumption that this holds true for all models). So potentially you may be able to just swap the guts out of the Ibiza mirrors into the Polo housing and use your existing mirror glass Also, the electrically folding mirrors also have a microswitch in them to "tell" the mirrors when to stop folding. Again, this shouldn't be hard to get around.

Secondly (the harder bit), the mirrors themselves do not have any electronics (logic) in them and the motors in the mirrors are controlled by the electronics in the electric window motors. The window motors are different for cars without electrically folding mirrors and cars which do have them. Externally they look the same, the difference is not in the motor, but the circuit board. And these have been swapped over into the "lesser" motors on Golfs and worked fine in this application.

Finally, there's a bit of wiring that needs to be done, but once the first two steps are done, this'd be a piece of cake. Then you need to change a few settings in VAG-COM and presto.

Not sure how much it'd work out at (electrically folding mirrors can be had for ~£50 new a side of the bay; then you need the window motors and the switch). Could potentially end up at over £250. Not sure it's worth it from a financial point of view, but it'd be cool

Might look further into this when I've got some free time over summer.

Ash

[RUM4MO]

Would be interesting to know; unusual that its offered on UK SEATs but not cross-platform.

That is VW UK for you, they would have kept them off standard spec to hold the price down - and considered that few people would have wanted them so would not commit themselves to supporting retro-fit kits. I discovered this (new) option too late when I ordered in my B5 Passat 4Motion in 2000 - I tried to add it in in May 2000 but my car's spec had been set in stone by that time as it was almost in build, and left it out when ordering in my wife's Polo in 2002 - but the option was always there for 9N Polos.