99 taurus driver side mirror

[goldenme]

My wife knocked off the drivers side rear view mirror while backing out of the garage. This looks like it should be a simple DIY replacement. A local body shop phone quoted me $400. Ouch! I don't think they wanted to be bothered. I can get a replacement over the web for under $100. Is there anything tricky about this job? Do I have to remove the interior door panel? Is this a tough job? Can anyone tell me how to remove the panel, or where on the internet I can find instructions to do it. Thanks.

[drdisque]

nope, its really easy, once you get the door off its pretty obvious how to get the mirror out. There's like 15 steps to getting the panel off, and I can't remember them unless I'm sitting in front of the door, so just spend the extra $10 and buy a shop manual for the car, all the instructions are in there.

[denisb]

Yeah, I took my 97 passenger side one off to fix it (same idea, broken case) and it's simple enough. I didn't even have a manual, just studied the mechanics behind it and figured it out.

[goldenme]

Originally Posted by drdisque

nope, its really easy, once you get the door off its pretty obvious how to get the mirror out. There's like 15 steps to getting the panel off, and I can't remember them unless I'm sitting in front of the door, so just spend the extra $10 and buy a shop manual for the car, all the instructions are in there.

Thanks, got it done quite easily. Big trick on the door panel removal is to carefully pry off the plastic plate behind the door latch. The latch is attached to the door frame and the panel comes off around the latch, therefore the plate behind the latch has to be removed first. The rest is simply removing all the visible screws around the panel and one in the bottom of the door hand pull (pit). Then carefully pry off starting at the bottom of the panel and working around to the sides and up to the top by the window. Pull the bottom out and lift upward and off. Electrical connections can be unplugged if you need to walk away with the panel, but for mirror replacement I only had to unplug mirror conection leaving rest alone. I found it easier to paint new mirror before installing it. Other than waiting fo paint and clear coat to dry actual mechanical replacement should be 1 hour or less. Thanks for you help, Goldenme.