Help With Rx300 Passenger Side Mirror Replacement

[anns]

I have a 2000 RX300 and the mirror on the passenger side broke. The

housing is all fine, I just need to replace the mirror glass. My Lexus

dealership said the price to replace the whole mirror part is about $480.00

because it is heated and has a dimmer. I can replace just the glass for about

$20.00. My question is if I just replace the glass will the heat, dimming and

power window control still work?

-Ann

[eugene.s]

Ann,

Re the $20 mirror glass - you'll definitely lose the heater/dimmer, but you should still rely on the power mirror functionality.

If you buy just the mirror glass (as you said, for just $20) - this seems to me an incredibly good option. Just make sure that it fits your car first (I guess you have this confirmed already with someone who suggested it) -- this will give you the power-mirrors functionality. The exercise is about connecting the mirror glass to its physical connection base inside the mirror's housing - no wires involved, just claws and some sticky tape.

To obtain the heater/dimmer functionality, you'd have to buy the mirror glass that is physically build to support this (having quickly googled, the cheapest replacement glass I found was $300+).

It you opt for the cheapest glass (as you suggested) - make sure that your mechanic properly isolates (with the insulation tape) the wires within the mirror housing, which wires would otherwise connect to a "heating/dimming-compatible" mirror glass (as you don't have compatible mirror glass, you need to isolate the wires). Otherwise you may get a short circuit (especially in a rainy weather) which could bring your car to a stop.

[VBdenny]

The car is 15 years old. Go for the simple mirror. Heated? So what?

[eugene.s]

Year, I'm with VBdenny - I should have mentioned that I never saw any great help of the outer mirror's heater/dimmer function. The dimmer only works great to me on the inside (center) mirror. The heater is really called "defogger" - which explains what it can do. It can help you get rid of some fog on the mirror, but if you hope it to melt the snow/ice on it - it cannot do that. Go for the simple mirror, the $20 quote is amazing and I would go for it myself.