The mirror on the driver’s side of my car was damaged by a car wash gorilla. The car has a button on the dash that when pressed will stow the mirrors against the side of the car. During one unfortunate trip through the local wash, I wasn’t fast enough upon exiting the washing machine at pushing the button to return the mirrors to their normal “upright and locked” position. The 350 pound gorilla assigned the duty of towel-drying the water that didn’t get blown off by the 250 horse power fan at the exit did me the kindness of returning the mirrors to the driving position manually, and in the process did grievous damage to the internal workings of the mirror. This was not obvious, of course, until the next time I tried to actuate the mirror stowage sequence, at which time the mirror made noises like it was attempting to grind up dinosaur bones. It does this periodically, now, without any stimulus or direction to do anything. The only thing that seems to stop it is to manually run the mirror from one limit to the other. Naturally, this mirror is heated, has turn signal LED indicators in the face of it, has electronic dimming for night driving when someone pulls up behind you with bright lights on, and a lamp for illumination of the ground when the doors are unlocked by the remote. I haven’t priced a replacement yet, but if it’s anything like the other Toyota parts I’ve tried to buy, it will likely require a second mortgage on my house to get a new one. So, I’d like to try to get one from a junque yard, if possible, but I need to find the part number to go looking. Can anyone tell me how to get one of these apart, so I can see the innards, and get the information I need?
One thing about Toyota’s. They’re for the most part pretty reliable machines.