Hi,
in my new to me 2001 XKR, the door mirrors are not working fully.
When bought, the right hand side (RHS - passenger here in USA) would move up and down and in, but not out.
The LHS/driver's would not move at all.
Inside the switch was dirty and corroded and attempts to clean were not successful. I bought a brand new switch from UK dealer.
Now both mirrors move up, down and in, but not out.
To me this suggests the new switch/joystick is working, as outwards for the two mirrors means left on the joystick for the LHS and right on the joystick for the RHS mirrors, so the fault must be in the mirrors, right? The wiring on the multi plug under the switch looks fine to me.

How do I investigate the mirrors, does the glass pull off to reveal the motors and wiring behind? Is there a technique to getting it off without breaking it?

Do I just "manually assist" the mirror while pushing the joystick?
Do I spray contact cleaner behind the glass and hope it cleans something up?

Constructive thoughts and suggestions welcomed.

 

The glass part does just unclip from the mirror housing, I'm sure there will be videos on YouTube and it's over 20 years since I last removed one of my XK8 mirrors but the usual method is to move the mirror so that the inside vertical edge is as far out as possible so you can get a couple of fingers behind it and then pull that edge outwards towards the back of the car whilst, at the same time, pushing it toward towards the outer edge of the housing. It should unclip. Fitting is the reverse.

If the motor won't move the inner edge outwards then move it manually by pushing in on the outer side whilst pulling out on the inner side.

Richard

 

I had a very similar problem with my 97 xk8, both mirrors would move in certain directions but not others. I took my switch apart and cleaned it, it got better but still problems. Took it apart again, and found a broken trace on the circuit board checking paths with a multimeter. Fixed that trace and now it’s working perfectly. If you pm me I can find the post about it as I included pictures. Even a new part can sometimes have faults, although rare it does happen.

 

I think I need to find another switch to swap with.
Hopefully I can find another car locally, with working mirrors, and swap their switch in to my car for a test.