About a week ago, I foolishly broke the side mirror of my car. I ordered a replacement, which came yesterday, and this morning I set about installing it. The site recommends getting it installed by a trained mechanic, and that’s probably good advice. But given that my car was about 20 years old, and after checking out this YouTube video, I figured I’d give it a shot doing it myself.

I’ll spare you the suspense: I got it installed, although it wasn’t as smooth sailing as I hoped. First was getting the tools: a Phillips head screwdriver, and a 10mm a socket ratchet. I had the screwdriver but I needed to get the ratchet socket and drive. Easy enough to acquire after a quick drive to Bunnings.

Next, was taking part of the passenger door cover off. This involved unscrewing one screw and two plastic “clip” screws. I’m a little unimpressed by how flimsy these plastic screws are: a bit too much force and they start breaking. I think I broke part of one when I was trying to get one off. Once the screws were out, part of the door cover had to be removed. The video made it seem like taking the covering off was as easy as lifting the clips out from the door, but I couldn’t get much of it off, and I think I may have broken some of the clips too.

After removing the cover from the mirror itself, I then had to use the socket ratchet to remove the bolts and nuts holding the mirror to the door. The mirror was one whole assembly: there’s no way to just replace the mirror part without replacing the housing. So the whole thing needed to come off. I’ve never used a socket ratchet set before, but after a few false starts, I managed to get two bolts off rather easily. The third one was a fair way in and required a longer socket. I loosened the bolt but when I tried pulling it out, it fell out of the socket, down into the cavity between the panelling and door cover. That door’s going to rattle for the rest of the car’s life now.

Short one nut, I needed to get a new one. The new mirror I bought didn’t come with any (which I found a little strange) and of course I didn’t have any 10mm nuts on me, so it was back to the hardware store to get some. They had 10mm nuts, but they seemed a bit big for what I needed. They certainly didn’t fit the socket. So I bought a collection of nuts and washers of various sizes, just to cover my bases. An 8mm nut and a 1/4 inch washer did the trick.

Back home, after attaching the new mirror, it was just a matter of putting the door cover back. I did as good a job as I could, but I struggled a lot here. I don’t think I got all the tabs back, and the plastic screws just spun around when I tried to tighten them. It looks all there, but if one were to poke and prod it a little, it wouldn’t feel as solid as it once did. It’s probably a good thing I don’t usually carry passengers.

So, that’s pretty much my adventure at car repair. The mirror’s pretty secure, but the door is not great. Despite all that, it was a good experience. But I think if that happened again on a newer car, I’d probably employ someone who knows what they’re doing.