Fiesta wing mirror

[EGYorkie]

Hello everyone, new to both the forum and Ford here.

 

Apart from the occasional uncomfortable crunch when trying to reverse the brand new (Less than 5 months old now) 2015 Fiesta 125 EcoBoost Titanium X that we recently bought, and a few minor scratches on the boot door and the trim in front of the passenger seat that I should’ve mentioned to the dealer when I noticed them a week or so after purchase, I’ve been happy with the car so far.

 

As usual though, there’s always a but; a few days ago I was having one of them days and I caught the passenger mirror while reversing, luckily though I realised what was happening soon enough, pulled forward slowly and the mirror eased itself back in position (It was pushed towards the front of the car). It was a very minor spring like catch that I was sure the mirror could take, however to double check and save myself the hassle of worrying, few minutes later I pulled over to test it, tried to adjust the mirror and power fold it to see if I caused any damage but everything was working fine.

 

When I got back home later that day I decided to give it a deeper inspection and that’s when I wasn’t happy, a little bit of a cosmetic discolouration on the black frame around the mirror itself which I think is easy to remove using one of Autoglym’s rubber and bumper cleaners (Hopefully!) But the serious problem now is that the mirror itself was (and still is) solid in place, but the mirror housing that’s attached directly to the passenger door was loose and a bit fiddly, so I looked inside the door and found the round rubber cover and thought I’d take a look, found the nut, got the tools to tighten it, but it was tight already, worrying that I might break anything if I try to tighten it any harder, I left it and decided to look at the loose housing part, couldn’t see anything physically wrong with it and it was getting dark and late so I left it.

 

Next chance I got to check it again for further inspection, I still couldn’t see anything wrong, so being the ‘geeky’ guy that I am, I decided to take the whole thing off for a more detailed inspection! It’s a bit hard to get deeper into the mirror assembly with the cable still connected, but I managed to pull the ‘foam’ cluster inside the plastic housing that’s attached directly to the door and I think I found what’s wrong: 2 ‘melted’ plastic style bolts that were holding the plastic housing onto the mirror’s aluminum chassis which bolts onto the door are broken, I can see where they should’ve been but I couldn’t find them anywhere;  during that inspection session I managed to break a very thin ‘locator’ like piece of extra fragile aluminum (Quality is rubbish! Once the bolt was a bit loose and the mirror started moving a bit I heard it snapping!) Luckily though, that doesn’t affect how solid the mirror is cause it’s as solid as it was before now, it did however make it a complete nightmare to align the mirror back in place! I did it though and it’s solidly attached to the car, tested it at nearly 80 mph and still intact!

 

I tried to look online to see if anyone’s got the same problem and it turned out that many people seem to have complained about their Fiesta’s wing mirror coming loose somehow, some just need bolt tightening, and some need the whole thing replacing! And I even found out that if your LED lights at the bottom of the mirror died you’ll need to replace the whole mirror if you want them working again!

 

Now I realise that I’m boring everyone in here, but I honestly don’t think it’s my poor parking skills that morning that caused the problem, I did catch the mirror reversing, but it really wasn’t bad enough to cause any damage, and to be honest, the mirror should be sturdy and solid enough to take more at even higher speeds. So now I am happy in one way that I know about it, and it is solid enough to trust it on higher speed, it’s just annoying to know that your new car isn’t as solid as it should be! But I’m not sure what the next step should be, I will take it to a Ford garage (probably the same one we bought it from), but the question now: Should they do it under warranty? Or will they try to say that it’s negligence on my behalf and that voids their warranty? (Specially considering the fact that I went all DIY on it taking it off myself?).

 

I’m sorry for the long post, but it seems like a rather unusual problem that I didn’t expect to happen to be honest, has anyone else had any similar problems? Or have anyone noticed their mirrors shaking a bit on higher speeds like some people described? I’m in a bit of a loss as to whether it was me that caused the problem that morning or if that just drew my attention to an already existing problem that I never noticed!

 

Thank you for reading this, and for responding if you did

[CookieM]

Never had any problems with the mirrors on any of my fiestas, nor have my mum and sister with theirs.

Your at no loss for asking ford the question, so might aswell! Although i doubt they'll do anything at no cost.

[EGYorkie]

17 hours ago, CookieM said:

Never had any problems with the mirrors on any of my fiestas, nor have my mum and sister with theirs.

Your at no loss for asking ford the question, so might aswell! Although i doubt they'll do anything at no cost.

Good to hear that you never had any problems, hopefully staying this way! I never knew that other people had problems until I started searching for it! And it seemed like the 'shaky, not tight enough bolt' situation was one of the 'characteristics' of the Fiesta somehow!

 

I will try and take it to the garage as soon as I get a chance, in the meanwhile I'm trying to investigate whether it was my poor parking skill that caused it or if it was something else! Shame it wasn't the driver's side cause I know for a fact how solid the mirror is given the number of bird droppings that I had to clean off it! But never really paid any attention to the passenger side mirror before that incident so I can't be 100% sure. If I was sure it was me I wouldn't mind paying to have it fixed/replaced, but if it wasn't then I'd expect it to be covered under warranty since it's a new car!

 

Thanks for the reply though

[iantt]

Its probably uncliped its self behind mirror cover

[EGYorkie]

8 hours ago, iantt said:

Its probably uncliped its self behind mirror cover

I'm not sure if you mean behind the colour coded mirror cover? I never checked behind the colour coded cover to be honest cause it was still in place and I decided to focus my attention on what I could see wrong. Besides, same day I had that unfortunate poor parking maneuver SYNC stopped reading the tracks on my USB, fixed by master reset so no big deal really, but it was the first time it happened! Next day the car failed to start after stopping at lights (I was running a short journey with what seemed to be like a million stops in less than 2 miles, so I take it down to that! Hopefully it's not a battery problem lol) But you get the picture, a few unfortunate situations happening on such a short period of time, so really I was having a few bad days and I was too worried I'd end up breaking something else if I started trying to take the colour coded cover off lol

The part that is loose is #1 in the attached picture, what I believe to be the problem are 2 broken 'melted' plastic style fixings to attach the loose housing to the aluminum chassis that bolts into the car door, these are located under the foam filling inside that housing (#2 in this picture) and the small locator style pin that I broke is the thin one inside the circle for #3.

I must sound either really boring or really boring now, sorry guys!

[iantt]

ive got one i can take apart and see what keeps that part secure

[EGYorkie]

That would be greatly appreciated Ian, hope it's a spare one though not one that's attached to your Fiesta!

From what I remember, they're 2 plastic pins on the inside of what I marked #4 on the picture, they're on opposite sides of each other and they must've been there for 2 rings on the aluminum chassis that rest on it then melt the plastic to keep it secure.

[iantt]

got a spare one or two about ,havent got fiesta , its damaged where the cover clips  to body, so hopefully the lower part is intact for me to look at.

[iantt]

Looks like 2 pegs and 3 plastic hooks.

[EGYorkie]

That's very helpful Ian, thank you very much for taking the time to do it!

It must be the pegs, I did think something was missing where the circle is but I had no idea what mechanism Ford were using to hold it in place so wasn't sure.

I'm still not sure what caused it though, whether it was me that morning or whether it's always been loose and I never noticed it! I don't want to go to the garage not knowing how it happened to be honest! On one hand I don't want Ford to take the blame if it was me that caused it! But on the other hand I don't want to have to pay to repair a faulty part on a new car if that was the case!

Thanks a lot for your help Ian!

[Obnoxious]

I'm sorry to hear the issue you're facing and to be honest, I can't assist with the Mk7 wing mirrors as I don't have a Mk7 Fiesta. However as you mentioned, you can take your Fiesta back to the dealer albeit they may consider it wear and tear/user damage rather than an actual quality fault; I believe it'll depend on how you phrase it to get it repaired under warranty cost-free (if they are even willing to do so).

As for your crunching reverse gear, unfortunately that's normal on certain vehicles - including the Fiesta, even my Mk6.5 crunches. Regarding your minor scratches on your boot door (a metal panel), you should use either G3 Scratch Remover or T-Cut on the scratch to permanently remove it, it's worked miracles for me so far on numerous occasions and vehicles. Hopefully that should be one or two less things you need to worry about. :)

All the best. :)

[EGYorkie]

The first time I heard a crunch while trying to reverse I just thought I needed to get used to the car, but as it happened again I started looking and found many people describing it as 'noarmal' for the Fiesta! Missing syncromesh on reverse I think or something similar, but 'normal'. so I just try and reverse slowly now and sometimes pop 3rd on then back to reverse and it works 95% of the time, shame, and will probably damage the gear teeth on the long run, but I can't help it.

The scratches are on the metal panels yes, I've bought some Autoglym paint renovator but never had a chance to test it, it always starts raining when I'm about to for some reason! But I can live with it for now and hopefully sorting it out soon, ish!

Why does everyone seems to think/imply that a Ford garage wouldn't be willing to fix a faulty mirro under warranty though? (If it is a faulty one, which I'm not saying it is, I'm still not 100% sure) The way I see it. and I know it's not an ideal world, but it's a new car, it should be under warranty as this could be a dangerous fault, if it 'fell' like many people complained, it will either damage my own car, or other cars on the road if it happened while on high speed! So my assumption is that a faulty part should be replaced under warranty, at least to prevent further damage!

I'll try and book it to at least get it looked at and be advised on what options I got, and then take it from there.

Thank you for your help

[Bobr]

A very good tip I was given some years ago:   When replacing a Fiesta wing mirror, tie a piece of string to the electrical plug before taking the mirror off.   You can then use the string to pull the new cable into position.   It works and saves a lot of fiddling about.

[EGYorkie]

Thank you for the advice mate, but I got a feeling that replacing the mirror on a Mk 7.5 Fiesta isn't that simple judging by the pictures I've seen of the new mirrors so far! But hopefully I won't need to find out!

Having a few busy days as usual so still haven't booked it in yet! It doesn't help that it's not an urgent problem lol! But hopefully doing it soon! And hopefully I won't need to be replacing the mirror myself!