458 Side Mirror Alignment and Vibration Fix

I did a few searches on the alignment of the 458 mirror at the pivot point where it folds. It seems there are a lot of mirrors with this bad alignment and most all are living with it. One post I read said a new one sourced from the dealer had the same issue. I have a bit of OCD and always want to make things the way they should have been. With this in mind I set out to fix this issue.

The other issue was the mirror glass vibrating at speed and rendering it essentially useless to make out any objects. This too I wanted to fix.

I decided to go out to the garage and tackle this project. I should preface this with the fact that I have tried a few times to tear apart the mirror to no avail, but I had my mind made up that today would be different.....And it was.

The mirror glass is held in with 8 tabs that can be released by prying up on them a little but the issue it you cannot see or get to the tabs easily and you risk breaking the mirror glass. You can slip a small mirror behind the glass and become a contortionist to view some but not all tabs. It was while I was looking at the tabs through a mirror I saw a better way that may work to disassemble the mirror.

I will use the drivers side mirror for the description but the passenger side is a ....wait for it....mirror image of the drivers side.

if you tilt the mirror down then push it left or right you will see two black Phillips screws and tilt up to the right you will see one more screw in the bottom left corner these are number 2. There is a Phillips on the bottom right corner but you do not need to undo this one. One is the top left corner and the other is a top right corner. If you grind a normal screw driver shaft down smaller it will fit between the glass and housing and allow for the removal of the upper left screw. The lower left screw will be the same method. The upper right screw is tricky as tilting the mirror will not let you get access so you will have to make a offset screw driver and remove it 1/4 turn at a time. (Picture attached). Once you get these three screws out of the housing you should fold the mirror housing by hand and remove the T10 that you will see on the knuckle where the mirror folds. Get on your back and look under and you will see one more T10 for a total of 2 screws. One is machine thread and the other is corse thread for plastic so pay attention to where they came from.

now it is time to remove the mirror from the car. There are many write up on this so I won’t go into great detail on this but don’t forget to track the number of connectors you are removing.

take the mirror to a bench and start the disassembly. The lower plastic tube will slide off with a gentle twisting motion. The mirror housing will also slide off but you will need to remove the black sensor that is sticking through the bottom of the mirror. Slide the housing a little to get access to the T10 that holds it on. When you have this T10 out you can slide and twist the mirror housing cover off the mirror frame. You can now see the tabs that hold the glass in easily and use a screwdriver to pry them up a little to remove the glass. You will also have one connector and two blade connectors to remove.

if you flip the glass over you will notice there are probably a few black tabs broken off. See the attached picture. This is the cause of the vibration. Set the glass aside as it will be the last piece we install.

put the mirror housing back on the frame and install the three Phillips screws you took out first. Put the sensor and the T10 back in. Flip the mirror over and put the other T10 in at the knuckle. Now install the bottom tube and put that T10 in also.

now to fix the alignment. You do not have to pull it apart as far as I did in the pictures but I wanted to show you all what was in the mirror. It seems Whomever Ferrari sourced the mirror from had it designed with a motor to have a power folding option. You will see a grey and a purple wire next to each other in one of the connectors. Hook 12 v to these two wires in a pulsing fashion until your alignment at the knuckle is what you want it to be. If you go too far simply reverse the wires and the motor spins the other way.

now the mirror is almost back together except for the glass and the knuckle is aligned.

now it is time to install the glass in the mirror. Use a few dabs of silicone on the back of the mirror and press it back on the hub but don’t forget your wires you unhooked. The tabs should still be good but the silicone will remedy the broken fingers. Let this dry for a while before you move it.

after the silicone dries you can install the mirror back on the car mind the connectors you removed. this will fix the vibration and the alignment. Total time for me was 4 hours but the second one would only be a few hours.
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Alignment could be done on the car. You need to find the wires which should be easy to see after you remove the door panel.

 

TTT for Metaldriver