Should you "dip" the rear view mirror upwards or downwards?
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L\'escargot.
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Downwards dips mine, upwards brakes it!
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You don't have a choice - you have to do it the way the maker designed it. Most that I have had dip by pulling a lever towards you which I guess means 'up'.
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Yes you do. The mirror in the Omega has two positions, up or down, You can adjust it for normal use in either position. Not sure if either way makes any difference though...
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Yes, there is a difference. Look carefully at most mirrors and you should find that if you do it one way, there's a second half-mirrored surface that gives you a dimmer view of what's going on behind, so you can still see the person behind but not be blinded by them.
V
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My old Vectra was as Smokie says, normal could be either position, I set it so dipping it allowed me to keep an eye on the kids in the back. IIRC our Clio only works one way. The Mondeo on the otherhand is auto dipping.
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I have a VW Bora with automatic darkening of the glass - doesn't take very much for it to work as intended.
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What\'s for you won\'t pass you by
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Same with all my recent BMWs. Landie's is an old BL thing, which does what it's meant to.
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Ditto as Stuartli. Most of the time I just let the sensor polarise the mirror glass for me. Not too effective in street lit areas though as the sensor on the back side of the mirror picks up the street light and thinks it's still daylight and doesn't allow the mirror to polarise quite as much. A quick flick of the interior lights soon floods the other sensor that picks up cars headlights from behind and forces the mirror to darken though.
But on my old cars with a manually dipping mirror, I flicked the lever so as to make the mirror move upwards.
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My cheapo aftermarket suction-pad internal rear view mirror isn't fitted with a dipping mechanism. Of course one can focus it slightly off to lose the worst of the glare from following cars, but touching the damn thing at all risks unsticking it from the screen, and it's a bit of a pink fluffy dice to replace. It doesn't respond well to being left in the sun either.
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I do the same as cheddar to check on the kids, but in my old Nova dipping the mirror always resulting in it pointing the wrong way when you un-dipped it.
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One of the 30 things I miss on my Omega (May the Lord Vishnu have mercy upon it's soul) was the rear electric blind.
I found it no use in sun, but great at night on unlit roads when someone was behind as you could see through the perforations yet the lights didn't illuminate your rooflining etc..., much better than the auto-dimming mirror.
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What was the first car to have a dipping rear view mirror then ?
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I don't know the first make/model to have one but they came in about 1966. I still have the Wingard non-dipping mirror from my 1967 Minx which I replaced with a dipping version from a Hunter.
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L\'escargot.
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I don't know the first make/model to have one but they came in about 1966.
At first they were only fitted as standard on the more upmarket versions. Base models continued for some time to have non-dipping mirrors. How times have changed!
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L\'escargot.
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Very early E-types had them...
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At first they were only fitted as standard on the more upmarket versions. Base models continued for some time to have non-dipping mirrors. How times have changed!
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On some versions of the run out model Mk4/5 Ford Cortina - the Crusader with the Ghia seats and wood, the clever bean counters at Ford decided to revert to a non dipping interior mirror. I guess the parts bin was empty.
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Not sure which rear mirror that we are talking about, but on my 300C, the wing mirrors dip automatically when you engage reverse (on both memory settings) and the inside rear view mirror has anti glare built into it already and doesn't dip at all.
MTC
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>>the wing mirrors dip automatically when you engage reverse >>
This irritates me no end on vehicles I have driven with the feature.
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What\'s for you won\'t pass you by
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>>the wing mirrors dip automatically when you engage reverse >>
>>This irritates me no end on vehicles I have driven with the feature.
Me too, as there are times I don't want the wing mirrors to dip at all, and I actually checked that our V70 didn't have this feature before I purchased the "memory seats and mirrors" option to ensure that my personal import had 100% equivalent SE spec.
Instead, I have used one of the memory channels to store the amount of dip I want.
When reversing into my usual preferred end-of-bay parking slot and I want to get up tight to the kerb I simply press memory button 3.
The seats don't move as they carry the same settings as memory 1, my usual settings, but the mirrors dip exactly the right amount.
I am however a fan of auto-tinting LCD rear view mirrors, and with one exception find the one in the V70 always tints exactly the right amount. The exception is when driving in to my home garage, whereupon the forward facing mirror photocell picks up relative darkness and the rear one bright daylight, with the result that the mirror tints darkly when it shouldn't tint at all. A small price to pay.
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Yet more pointless gadgets that the manufacturers believe we need. Solutions to never asked questions IMO, along with electric handbrakes and automatic headlights. The day when I can't decide when to put my headlights on is the day I should retire from driving.
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>>the wing mirrors dip automatically when you engage reverse >> This irritates me no end on vehicles I have driven with the feature. - - - - - - - - - - -
I love it !!!!!!
But there must be plenty of people who don't, because you acn access the computers "personal settings" and override it.
Funnily enough, the heated leather electric seats with memory & electrical adjustment and the heated electrically folding wing mirrors (with memory) that dip on reverse, plus the anti glare inside mirror are all standard fit on my 300C - I didn't realise that other people had to pay extra to have them fitted.
Good grief I bet it adds thousands to the price of other cars (where's the PMSL smiley when you need it ?)
MTC
p.s the memory settings on my car also remember you radio station preferences.
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My previous 5 series had an auto dipping nearside wing mirror when reverse was engaged but IIRC you could switch the feature off by leaving the wing mirror adjuster in a certain postion.
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Yep - can be programmed out on BMWs. I admit to it being useful for reversing out of it's parking spot outside PU and avoiding some carelessly strewn boulders. Yes I know I should reverse in.
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on my 300C, the wing mirrors....
Didn't think they fitted them to the wings anymore?
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>> on my 300C, the wing mirrors.... Didn't think they fitted them to the wings anymore?
you know what I mean !!!! (multiple smileys)
oh and they're chrome covered and look soooooooooooo damned goooooooood.
MTC
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