Mirror Madness

[Bilmac]

Hello, this is my first post so please bear with me. I have a late 2002 406 estate executive. The car is fine considering its 125,000 miles but there is a niggling problem with the electric mirrors. The mirrors have power folding (drivers side only) and memory positioning. The near side passenger mirror appears to have a memory of its own. Every time I switch on the ignition it adjusts to some alien position with no reference to the memory settings as saved. The mirror motor works well and moves the mirror at good speed but never to the position saved to memory and generally to one of two different and totally useless positions. The near side mirror then has to be corrected with the toggle switch on the drivers door, but when this switch is used the mirror moves very slowly and often has to be coaxed into position by repeated prolonged rapid toggling of the switch. The drivers door mirror will generally automatically adjust to the memory setting but on occasion it will also go walkabout albeit to a lesser degree than the passenger side mirror. The driver side mirror moves at full speed across the whole range of movement on the toggle switch and can therefore be adjusted very quickly. I have removed the door switch and checked it to find that it has no sign of ever being wet and all contacts appear to be clean and tight. I removed the near side mirror and checked the connection block to find it looking dry, clean and tight. There is obviously power to both mirrors. All other electrics appear to be basically sound with everything in working order apart from the cruise control. The near side mirror motor works well when driven from memory but very slow when driven by the toggle switch. I suspect that some other electrickery is winding me up. Could it be a memory problem, the car is 10 years old, could it be Alzheimers? Many thanks.

[steve_earwig]

Hi there, welcome

Have a look at this: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=11121&p=98853&hilit ... mad#p98945

[Ares]

Hi,welcome to the forum.
If all connectors are ok,than maybe something is crazy with comp.unit

[Bilmac]

Thanks Steve & Ares.

I did not check the driver side block connection, will do that tomorrow and report back. Cheers

[Bilmac]

Hello again.

Right! I checked the drivers side mirror connection block and all appears to be fine. I also removed the glass from the passenger side mirror and after cleaning out the spiders and associated detritus could not see anything obviously wrong. However, after I replaced everything and tested the mirrors I found that after adjusting the mirrors and setting the memory again I switched off, removed the ignition key, got out and locked the car. I immediately unlocked the car, turned on the ignition and started it and the mirrors did not move from the memory setting I had just stored. I then turned off the ignition, got out again, locked the car and left it for 5 minutes. When I unlocked and turned on the ignition (before starting) the mirrors went haywire much as they have done before. I think that this problem has something to do with central memory. Is it possible to reset the memory programming by disconnecting the battery and leaving it for a while? Something like a system restore on a computer?

Once again, many thanks for your help.