How To Remove A Jaguar Rear View Mirror

The rear view mirror used the 1997-2002 Jaguar XJ8 (X308) and related cars like the Jaguar XK8 (X100) has a low-cal-sensitive electrochromic machine-dimming characteristic which is unfortunately decumbent to failure. The mirror develops discoloured patches. The chemical that darkens to dim the mirror tends to move around, causing blotches of dark-brown or black. If you're really unlucky, the glass can crack and the highly corrosive brown liquid can drip out and damage your interior. These failures seem to happen simply with age, fifty-fifty if the mirror has never been mistreated.

The mirror houses two lite sensors (front and back) to know when it should dim. These calorie-free sensors also control the automatic headlight function, and on college/later models at that place is likewise a rain sensor that controls the automatic wiper.

The combination of these mirrors being complex and having a loftier failure rate means they are at present scarce, and expensive.

At some point in the production run, the mirrors changed blueprint. Equally far every bit I know, there is no way of telling the two mirrors apart externally – the merely way to know is to remove the top centre console via the screw in the sunglasses holder and bank check the colour of the connector. Earlier ones accept a vi-pin yellow connector while later on ones take an 8-pivot white connector.

I've needed a replacement mirror for ages but accept been holding off due to the high price. One popped upwardly on eBay for a low price recently, then I snapped it up. When it arrived, I realised I'd accidentally bought the white connector type when I actually need the yellow connector type.

In that location is a lot of confusion on forums almost compatibility, whether they can be rewired, whether you can swap the glass over and exit the wires, etc. It is possible to swap the glass over, simply the mirror casing is glued together and seems quite hard to open without smashing the glass (particularly if you're clumsy and impatient similar me) so I ruled that out.

I was able to observe the post-obit data about the wiring of the yellow connector:

1	White	+12V IGN
2	Greyness	Opposite Interrupt
3	Black	Ground
4	Yellow	Cell (output to exterior dimming mirrors?)
v	Green	Ti S (car headlight trigger?)
six	Dark-brown	Hood

Xanthous connector wiring

I couldn't find corresponding information for the white connector, but by studying where the wires went, I deduced that the bluish, carmine and imperial wires were for the rain sensor – which my machine didn't accept. Eliminating those 3, all the other colours matched up except the chocolate-brown. Nobody online seems sure what the brown wire is for only plenty of people were claiming information technology didn't do annihilation or was rubber to ignore – so I did.

Red, royal & blue divert off the rain sensor

I'm not much good at electronics but I managed to solder together the 5 matching wires and insulate them with heat compress tube. Then I carefully insulated the cutting-off brown, ruby, blueish and royal wires to preclude shorts after, and and so covered the whole lot in more heat shrink tube. For those asking why I didn't just release the crimped connector: I tried, but it was too difficult and I don't have the correct tool.

It seems to work perfectly – if I cover the light sensor with my fingers, the mirror turns blue and dim and the headlights come on. My motorcar doesn't have the automatic wipers so they obviously don't piece of work anyway. I haven't noticed anything bad happening from non connecting the dark-brown wire to anything.

And then please don't accept my advice equally gospel truth, because I'yard just a guy with a blog. But in my experience, if yous tin can't notice the right blazon of spare mirror, you tin can quite easily swap the xanthous and white connectors and have a functional dimming mirror again.