So recently, some whack person stole my passenger side mirror plastic cover while I was in a store. They didnt take whole mirror or even try to break into my car. Even the driver side mirror wasnt messed with. I looked online for any type of explanation possible but it turns out that this is a common thing because people are too cheap to buy their own crap. Factory side mirrors range from $200 to $300 tops if you get it from the dealership, which is pricey for something pretty simple. And if people messed up their cover, they have to buy the entire mirror, which is why they go around stealing them in the first place. So from what Ive learned.... buying an after market side mirror isnt too bad of an idea. they are much cheaper. I bought a pair of brand new RS type side mirrors for $55 bucks. If you get the after market for one mirror of the original model, it ranges from $70 to $150 and its unpainted. At least with the other one that I got, they had better style. A little smaller but it works for if you want to spend little money. Plus it looks alot nicer on a TC. Some of them even comes with LED lighting for turn signals.

Installing a Side Mirror (After Market)

Depending on where you get the after market mirrors, sometimes they dont fit the best for our cars because the way they are made a quick and cheap. I am submitting this posting because it took me half a day to figure out how to install the after market mirrors. And there wasnt alot of useful info online. So for those of you that need info, here you go.

First you need to remove the mirror from your car by taking out the triangular piece. You need a tool to remove the bolts so that the mirror can be removed. The electrical wiring is connected through wire harnests which looks like a white clip. After market mirrors dont have the harnests to put them together and just the wires itself. You need to figure out what each wiring color scheme does or you could blow your fuse if connected incorrectly. Thats what happened to me.

So then, cut the wiring for the wire harnest from the mirror that you are removing so that you can reuse the wire harnest to connect to the wires from the new mirrors easily to your car.

The color schemes for the Scion TC side mirrors are as follows:

Pink: Lights
Orange: Lights (Turn signals)
Black: Motor (left and right)
White: Motor (up and down)
Red: Motor (left and right)

I then wired the after market mirror to connect to the wires from the tc wire harnest. Then I connected the harnests together in install the mirror. I bought a ZERO4 SLR style racing mirror. It had 7 wires instead of the 5 found on the TC so it can be tricky when wiring because some end of being used and some didnt.

The color schemes for the After Market Mirror are as follows:

Green: Motor (left and right)
White: Motor (up and down)
Yellow: Motor (left and right)
White: White LED lights
Blue: Blue LED lights
Yellow: Yellow LED lights
Black: ground

I choose to use Blue LED signal lights and didnt use the other two. So I connected the wires as follows:

After Market Wire/ TC wire
Green to Black
White to white
yellow to red
yellow to pink
blue to orange
Black to metal surface for ground

 

Pictures?

 

Thanks for the info. I'd like to see pics too

 

cool. a handy write up...

but damn? people are that desperate to steal that stuff??? people suck.