Side Mirror was knocked off in San Francisco
 

The past weekend, I went up to San Francisco. In late Friday afternoon, I took some friends to Golden Gate Park where they can see the famous Golden Gate Bridge. I parked at the meter. 30 minutes later When we came back to my car from the vista point happy, cold, and hungry for a nice dinner, a dangling broken side mirror on the passenger side greeted us to our surprise.

My first reaction was: some car/truck might have knocked it off during parking maneuvering. I checked the mirror housing, but fail to find ANY scratches(the mirror housing scratched a little of my right door paint though) on the mirror itself and the mirror housing. As a result, I had to rule out the possibility of hit and run. Then I thought somebody must have hit it off when passing through between the cars. Since there is no note left behind claiming responsibility of this incident, I stopped guessing who did it. Eventually, I asked a nice official for some duct tapes to temporarily tape the mirror to the door frame so that I can drive.

Please check out these photos from my cell phone.
Question for you guys now:

(1) Is the side mirror housing really this fragile? Did it happen to anyone of you? Do you think I can take it back to the dealership and claim the mirror housing is too fragile, a defect, or something like that.

(2) As I mentioned above, my mirror itself, the cover (the one with paint) are all ok, only the plastic part of the housing broke.

(3) I searched Amazon and found one side mirror(whole thing) for about $90

(4) I also called my dealership. They ask $295 for the whole housing, and $180 for the labor. The clerk told me that I can reuse my mirror cover. So don’t need to paint the cover.

(5) I had installed a side mirror on my old car a few years ago, and knew basically how to do it. The only thing I didn’t handle very well was the plastic film which is affixed to the door panel. You can see that when you take the door panel off. In order to replace the side mirror I had to get into that film. However, after the mirror housing installation, I didn’t find a way to re-glue the film back like what it was. I believe the film keeps water out, is it right? So now I hesitate to install it on my own.

(6) Do you know how much a regular body will charge to install the mirror housing?

(7) If I buy the housing and install it by myself, will it violate the warranty?


Photos on Flickr - Photo Sharing




Since my insurance deductible is $1000, I do not plan to go through claim process.

I’ve been driving my new car in LA for about a year and half, and I didn’t have any scratch. Now only one visit of a SF park left me with a broken mirror! I’m upset with SF now.

Not sure what happened there, but possibly intentional? Almost looks like a downward pressure break? I doubt Infiniti will cover by warranty, unless it can be proved that it just fell off on it's own, which is highly unlikely.

Is your comprehensive insurance deductible $1000 or collision??

This should be able to be repaired under a comprehensive claim and not collision claim as you were parked and no evidence of a collision with another car.

I don't know you (or your insurance company) from Adam, however when I lowered my comprehensive deductible from $500 to $50 it made my monthly premium go up by about $8 and that's for my car and my wife's car combined. You may want to check into that b/c $1000 deductible for comprehensive is crazy.

You can use comprehensive for almost anything except collisions, which is what your collision ins is for.

I can't see how installing another mirror by yourself will affect your warranty on your G, other then the mirror itself.
Tom

That sucks, what is with people.

Stolen wheels thread, then rocks thrown at a G, and now this

Blame it on the financial crisis? :dunno:

Should have never went to sf.

It's just bad luck and could have as easily happened anywhere. No need to blame SF or Infiniti for it. The side mirror housing is not fragile, and what happened to you was clearly not a defect. As for body shop costs, they'll vary from state-to-state, so there's no way to get accurate advise on that here. The only thing you'll affect on your warranty is if you damage anything while you attempt the repair yourself. So, for example, if the door panel, hardware or ancillary parts get dinged, and the window won't retract proprtly, don't expect the Infiniti warranty to cover any of that.

I went to a concert in Berkley last night and couldn't stop thinking through the whole thing that I would get back to my car and it would be mangled lol. Definitely looks like a hater, that was snapped off. Sorry to hear this :(

Thank you all for replying!

I've decided to go through a local body shop a buddy recommended to me. I plan to order the part myself, and take it to the body shop.

The other day, the dealership part dept man mentioned to me that the Side View Mirror Housing cover can be taken off and re-snapped onto the new housing. A flat head screw driver will do the work. Yesterday, I checked the housing very carefully, but I didn't see any gap between the housing and the cover. Do you know how to take the cover off?

Thank you!

that almost looks like something you could blame on infiniti. seriously. any mirror should stand up to some downwards pressure say from your own weight; go to another car on the lot and lean on it some. the worst that they could say is no. give it a shot?

by the way - i'm not from the bay area, but every chance we get to go down to san fran...we always try to go "The House of Prime Rib." omgawwww...!!!

Since one side of the mirrors is broken, why dont you just change both of them to the JDM power folded mirror?

A flat head screw driver should be able to take it off, if anything the body shop can do it. I think your wasting your money taking it to the body shop. Very easy install.......

People suck. The end.

Things such as this make me like animals more than people.