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Non-Tow Mirror Question (I might have a bright idea...)

thebigdu

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To those XL/XLT owners out there with non-tow mirrors and without BLIS, are the mirrors still heated and power-adjustable?
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CoryB

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Mine are power adjustable on my XL. I’ve only had it a month, so no cold weather yet, but it has what appears to be a heating icon on the glass.

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Sneezy

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Yes mine are heated and power adjustable, they are manual if you don’t get the electronic equipment group, which means you will have crank windows as well and no power locks
 
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thebigdu

thebigdu

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Alright, so here's my "bright" idea....

The base mirror glass can be had for ~$60 per side. What if...and hear me out here...what if I replaced my BLIS mirror glass with the base mirror glass and instead installed an external BLIS indicator a la @Kodiak ? This solution would provide the best of both worlds: spotter mirror and BLIS indicator, which is how these higher trim mirrors should have come from the factory. Questions/challenges would be:

1) Do base and high trim mirror glass share the same mounts?

2) Does high trim mirror housing have room behind spotter area of base mirror glass or would something BLIS/dimming related interfere?

3) Auto-dim functionality would obviously be lost. I have decent tint on the window and never really had this feature on past vehicles, so not sure I'd miss it anyway, but would I have a code to deal with?

4) Would power adjust (assuming yes) and defrost functions work without issue with no Forscan needed?

I was thinking I could tap into the harness within the mirror housing and install the BLIS indicator somwhere visible on the housing instead of on the inside trim, where @Kodiak placed his, but not sure the housing would have enough space. Motors, etc might interfere. I stole the below pic from @JExpedition07 to demonstrate.

Let me know your thoughts! My gut feeling is that this should be a very doable mod as long as one is okay with losing the Auto-dim functionality.

Ford F-150 Non-Tow Mirror Question (I might have a bright idea...) 149C8700-5D06-402D-92A3-DCD0BAE32022
 

Kodiak

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Alright, so here's my "bright" idea....

The base mirror glass can be had for ~$60 per side. What if...and hear me out here...what if I replaced my BLIS mirror glass with the base mirror glass and instead installed an external BLIS indicator a la @Kodiak ? This solution would provide the best of both worlds: spotter mirror and BLIS indicator, which is how these higher trim mirrors should have come from the factory. Questions/challenges would be:

1) Do base and high trim mirror glass share the same mounts?

2) Does high trim mirror housing have room behind spotter area of base mirror glass or would something BLIS/dimming related interfere?

3) Auto-dim functionality would obviously be lost. I have decent tint on the window and never really had this feature on past vehicles, so not sure I'd miss it anyway, but would I have a code to deal with?

4) Would power adjust (assuming yes) and defrost functions work without issue with no Forscan needed?

I was thinking I could tap into the harness within the mirror housing and install the BLIS indicator somwhere visible on the housing instead of on the inside trim, where @Kodiak placed his, but not sure the housing would have enough space. Motors, etc might interfere. I stole the below pic from @JExpedition07 to demonstrate.

Let me know your thoughts! My gut feeling is that this should be a very doable mod as long as one is okay with losing the Auto-dim functionality.

149C8700-5D06-402D-92A3-DCD0BAE32022.jpeg
I would be surprised if this was not easily doable. At least for the BLIS light on the mirror housing. There should be plenty of room in there. The mirror arm might be a problem though.

The mirror housing should have a lot of room for the new BLIS light and you really would just be moving it over from the edge of the mirror to the housing. Then adding that additional BLIS light in the interior is cake.

This would let you have that nice mirror with convex mirror built in, and move the exterior BLIS a little closer to your eyesite path. Very nice.

I think Fords (and others) thinking is that with the BLIS in the mirror it forces you to look in the mirror when you check for the BLIS activation. There is merit in this theory but in practice, it really is just barely there. So much of a better job could be done for this huge safety tech.

I always hoped that the plastic piece around the entire mirror could be utilized for a large BLIS light. That entire surrounding area of the mirror would lightly light up yellow when BLIS is active. Then if you turn on your directional it would change to red and an auditable warning would activate. This would give you a large area to quickly see if BLIS is active without having to focus on a small light in the mirror. Then you could easily get that additional convex mirror for another small safety measure.
 
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thebigdu

thebigdu

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I would be surprised if this was not easily doable. At least for the BLIS light on the mirror housing. There should be plenty of room in there. The mirror arm might be a problem though.

The mirror housing should have a lot of room for the new BLIS light and you really would just be moving it over from the edge of the mirror to the housing. Then adding that additional BLIS light in the interior is cake.

This would let you have that nice mirror with convex mirror built in, and move the exterior BLIS a little closer to your eyesite path. Very nice.

I think Fords (and others) thinking is that with the BLIS in the mirror it forces you to look in the mirror when you check for the BLIS activation. There is merit in this theory but in practice, it really is just barely there. So much of a better job could be done for this huge safety tech.

I always hoped that the plastic piece around the entire mirror could be utilized for a large BLIS light. That entire surrounding area of the mirror would lightly light up yellow when BLIS is active. Then if you turn on your directional it would change to red and an auditable warning would activate. This would give you a large area to quickly see if BLIS is active without having to focus on a small light in the mirror. Then you could easily get that additional convex mirror for another small safety measure.
The entire perimeter piece being an indicator would be pretty cool and very hard to miss.

RAM still gives a spotter mirror and BLIS indicators on their non-tow mirrors. I wish Ford and GM would follow suit.
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