PistolPete

Bear with me, but this is going to sound insane.

The manual makes no mention of the heated mirrors, only the rear defrost behavior. I have to assume the mirrors (if heated) are tied to the rear defrost control.

Earlier this summer I had some repair work done to the car the needed the drivers side mirror housing to be completely removed. Now I have no idea how complex this is, I'm picturing two dozen tiny wires that need to be re-crimped <sarcasm off> to put the mirror housing back on. Could there be a separate heat control wire that was left unplugged? The power function to move the mirror still works.

It's finally getting cooler here and this morning both mirrors had condensation on them. I turn on the rear defrost and noticed that the passenger mirror slowly clear up while the drivers remained fogged. I was unable to pull over and check for a while but when I did, both my drivers and passenger mirrors were cold. The rear window was still warm from the defrost button still on.

I had another owner check his mirrors today with the rear defrost on and both were cold. The outside temp was in the low 80's however. Could this thing be temperature sensitive?

I'll need to test this again with an remote thermometer once the temps get low enough. In 3 yrs of ownership I never gave a second thought to this but of course after a major repair I end up second guessing everything in the car.

Can anyone here add some insight to this?

I don't have the auto-dimming mirrors, just the base ones.

Thanks for indulging my madness,
-Pete

James88

I really don't think there is heating in the mirrors otherwise it would state it in the owners manual.
One side defrosting quicker than the other might have to do with aero and maybe which direction the wind is blowing.

PistolPete

That's another possibility I had considered. The dealer showed me some documentation about "heated mirrors" but it could be an error in documentation such as the infamous power seat memory settings (up to 3) for the sofa seats.

9elheven

Yeah, Pete, now that I think of it, I believe the mirrors are not heated. I should have mentioned that to you, sorry!

PistolPete

I'm bringing the remote thermometer tomorrow to test all four GT4's we'll have at breakfast!

9elheven

And, PistolPete, the results were...what (for those not in attendance)?

Thanks so much for your friend and you coming, PistolPete...everyone had a great time, and the weather cooperated big time! His car is "insane!" (Apologies to Crazy Eddie - the original one.)

PistolPete

There was no heat in the mirrors when the defroster is on two different GT4's. The thermometer registered just the ambient temps even minutes after the defroster was enabled.

cmosman

On the topic of left rear view mirrors -- in Germany / RoW an aspheric mirror is used that gives a MUCH wider field of view vs. the flat glass in the USofA. Saw this while in Germany last year and installed them on my GT4 and Volkswagen daily. Part number for the GT4 is 991-731-045-01. No idea why these are not the default !?
Here is a video for the install: I don't remember whether there were heating wires or not. Easy to check if you want to know. Either way, it's a 1:1 replacement and you will never go back.

9elheven

^^^^ Thank you!