When I bought my Mini I had a strict budget, and didn't want to wait so there are a couple of options that I did without. One of which is heated mirrors. It's one of those things that you don't care about until you have had them and then have to do without them. My last two vehicles had it and now I am wishing my R56 had them too. So can they be added? What would it cost? Difficulty level?

Sure, they can be.

You would need the mirrors, wiring / fuses, and the door switch to activate.
Do you currently have power folding mirrors?

If you have mechanical and electrical 12v circuit background, you could tackle such in a day project.
Kicker is that you have to send wiring through the door jams and behind the dash to get this to work.

- Erik

My local Mini Dealer parts guy, one of their techs and myself pulled my mirrors off from my 11 r56 to see what it would entail.. Interestingly enough we found that the mirror plug (from the car) appears to have the wiring for the "heated mirror base" and according to the parts computer the mirror is universal (both heated and non heated).

From what we can tell, we can create a jumper wire to bypass the "heated mirror" base's plug.. It looks quite simple but we are unsure if we'll have to do any computer programming to get it to work..

I'm planning on trying it myself as I critically need to see out of my mirrors during these winter months.. I'll try and update you with how it turns out..

Anybody else try this???

I am very interested in seeing how this turns out. Please keep us updated!

I know this is a very old thread, but our passenger mirror got damaged, I notice the original mirror has the heating elements and the replacement too, as does the driver side mirror, I took it out and looked. The wiring is in the mirror assembly and goes into the door harness. I wonder if it just goes into the main harness and all one needs is the switch which is the second one from the left, next to the window switch, where ours is blank. I'm not sure if the heated mirrors are automatic, or manual?

According to realoem, there is not a separate part number for heated mirrors. I have a friend who works for an independent BMW/Mini shop. He can get parts for cheap and program any available option or function to the car with ease. Looks like I might be the guinea pig for this one. Nice find, thanks for the info!

Can't find the switch on realoem. Can anyone help us out and find the heated mirror switch for the 07-10 and LCI models?

Edit: Just did some research and talked with the friend mentioned in my last post. Apparently there is no switch and most BMW cars are activated automatically via a ambient temp sensor or just with ignition on. Can anyone verify?

They are activated via ambient temp. I know I can code them via NCS. Now I can't remember which module controls them...You MAY have to code the car to get them to work.

Just looked it up, pretty sure you will need to add $313 SPIEGELHEIZUNG to the Vehicle Order and code the car to enable the heated mirrors. Head over to the electrical modification section and look for NCS.

Hi guys,

Did anyone managed to add heated mirrors on R56? I've just bought an R56 for my wife and does not have electrical heated mirrors. This i quite ugly while driving in the rain. I don't want to imagine how will be on winter.

Reviving an old thread. Would love to know as well, just got ours and now its snowing out