One of the many fatalities of the hail/wind storm was the side view mirrors on the Monte Carlo. Since the hail was literally flying sideways, it was obvious that anything facing the direction of the onslaught would take a beating. The driver's side mirror looked like someone took a slingshot to the thing, leaving a large hole in the middle of it while the passenger mirror was just gone.
Only problem with these mirrors is the idea that they are of a different shape compared to what I've managed to find online. Now while I could get whole mirrors online, the problem is that the driver's mirror is a remote control mirror, hooked up with a cable to a toggle lever in the door panel. I don't want to replace this feature with some generic mirror and I haven't even found a remote controlled mirror that will apply to this car. This means that the only option is finding a replacement glass for the existing mirrors. Again, this is something that wasn't happening as all of the replacement glasses did not match the mirrors on this car. As I would have to do before, I had to make a template of the mirror base in order to make the replacement reflective surface. This was pretty simple as all I had to do was take a piece of paper and press it against the mirror base to make an impression on the paper. I then traced the impression over with a permanent marker and cut it out. Afterwards I trimmed a little bit of paper as needed to make the template fit within the mirror base with a minimum of empty space. With the template made I was able to trace out the same template on the mirror plastic. With that I cut out the oval-ish shaped piece and used a couple of the double sided sticky strips to attach the replacement mirror surface to the mirror base. Doing the passenger side first I cut enough sticky pieces to secure the mirror to the base, peeling the protective film from the surface to reveal the nice reflective surface. I repeated the same thing with the driver's side, this time taking care to clean the broken mirror surface prior to putting the sticky strips in place to they will hold as best as they can. Repeating the same procedures as with the passenger side, I was able to make a perfect replacement reflective surface for the driver's side. The only real problem I seen with these mirrors is the idea that because they're flexible plastic, when pressed against the surfaces with the sticky strips, they make for a slightly rippled surface that refracts the light hitting it, making for a rippled image in the mirror. Now while this doesn't stop one from viewing the mirror to see what's behind them, some may object to the idea that the image in the mirror is slightly distorted. They may look at it as "tacky" or cheap since it is a cheap fix. The idea I had to help this was to remove the sticky strips and use some glue to fix the mirrors to the bases so as to make for a super flat surface that will hopefully not refract the light like they are now. Again, as the mirrors currently are, they're not stopping me from being able to see images but I always like to improve things when I know I can. While these mirrors are definitely getting the job done as far as allowing me to see shit behind me, even after I do try to glue down the mirrors, I will still be looking at what it costs to make replacement mirror glass for the templates I made and if its not too ridiculous I'll get the real deal made so I can replace the plastic mirrors with glass. Until then, the cheapo plastic mirrors will be holding it down.
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