Thanks for the info, I'll be doing this soon

 

You are a genius!!!!

Thaks!!!

 

Now you tell me.
Hahaha.

The way I did it was a bit more difficult and only one clip of the drivers side mirror broke. The other side came off without an issue.

Anyway, at least I am enjoying my new JCW Carbon Fiber Mirror Caps.

 

I would imagine a number of people have painted primered caps to suit their tastes... anyone have a recommended type of exterior paint available in spray can off the shelf, rather than having th ebody shop either do it or pressurize a can for you? I don't have to colormatch to MINI stock colors, so it's more about the type and brand of paint... any recommendations?

This guide is awesome, by the way.

 

I did this on about 3 MINIs at a club meet, this is a great alternative to the poke around with a screwdriver method haha

 

An EXCELLENT how-to!

I doubt that I spent 5 minutes swapping my mirror caps out. I sorta feel bad about wasting the paper to print the instructions out....it was that simple.

Thanks very much!

 

Wow -- Thanks for these great instructions! I asked the dealership about replacing these... They said that it would cost one hour of labor ($90) and that the original caps break so I wouldn't be able to use them again.

I used your instruction and did it myself in a total of 10 minutes - and did not break one clip!!!

 

I wouldn't take my MINI to that dealership even for a wiper fluid refill !

 

In all fairness, if you DO use a tool then yeah - it takes forever and you do generally break so many of the tabs that they're nor re-usable. That said, I'm shocked that they didn't know the trick of popping off the mirror glass to get to the tabs - it was obviously designed to work exactly this way...

Happy to save you a Benjamin!

 

Nothing will surprise me anymore about how little MINI dealers know about the cars they sell.

 

WOW! Excellent write up. I am no longer afraid.

Glad it got bumped, so it showed up in new posts. :D

 

This might be your best How-To thread yet, Matt. 3 minutes per mirror cap, done.

I can't imagine trying that without taking the mirror off first. At best... 2 cuss words and one broken clip. At worst... 9 cuss words and 3 broken clips.

Anyone want to buy a pair of chrome caps... cheap ??

 

I'll echo what CR&.... said, Matt this is a most helpful write-up! Did mine in 10 minutes total. No broken clips! Thank you!

 

Matt- sent a PM. Thanks for the heads up bro!

 

This method could work exactly the same on a 2007 mcs??... my mother in law just order the mirror caps it would be helpful to use this method...

 

I'm not sure about that... I have a 2006 and I know it works for all models from 2002 until they changed models in 2007. The 2007 Cabrio should still be the same (they're not changing the body style until 2008 on the convertavble) but I have no idea on the '07 hard-top, sorry. Can someone confirm?

 

i too am thankful, on monday i was going to motor city mini and gunna pay them 54 dollars just for install! now i will gladly do it by myself =D

 

This technique works on the R56. I just popped mine off. You just have to pry the mirror a little harder than you expect. Takes a little nerve, but it works well.

 

Thanks for the help Matt. I changed jy R56 caps to JCW cf's and it worked perfectly. See my gallery for result!

 

great thread ImagoX, worked perfectly, thanks a million. I was trying to just pry off the cover at first and when it was not coming I deceided to look it up and found this. Also thanks to Eric Rowland posting that you really need to pull hard on the mirror part (no my clips did not break). I did have to use a flat head to get oneside off. the clips were much tighter than the other side.

 

BRAVO FOR YOUR METHOD OF REMOVING THE MIRRORS!!!! ABOUT 5 MINUTES EACH, NO BROKEN TABS AND THE UNION JACKS ARE IN PLACE ON MY 2007 CHILE RED CABRIO. MAKES YOU FEEL GOOD WITH INFORMATION THAT WORKS.

 

All caps=bad form.

 

This is a good read. Not sure if this is a common thing, but I had my cars passenger side mirror cap stolen early this morning. They (the Mutants) obviously didn't read this because I got them to scratch my glass and some black trim parts possibly with a screw driver. (Hopefully all of the tabs broke for the mutants.) Anyone else hear of this type of theft?

 

Yep, the thieves were probably trying to get the whole mirror--unless of course you had carbon covers--if so, they were probably just trying to get those.

Coming from the E36 M3 world, I got pretty familiar with side mirror theft stories going around the interwebs. It's pretty common.

 

No carbon JR, just the factory black shiny stock ones. I'm hoping it's random and they don't try and come for the rest of the mirror or the driver side. I sure would hate to bash someones head in on Christ's birthday. (I have good expereince there, busted someones arm once in 1987. Waited 2 nights for the creep to show and was actually asleep in that car back then waiting for him) Cops showed and told me I should have smashed his head in. That was then before 3 kids, a mortgage and these silly laws saying I can't use more force than necessary to protect my property.