Destroyed Wing Mirror!!

Toobie · Nov 2, 2025

Hello Again All

I'm sure this has happened to others - offside wing mirror destroyed - I had only travelled ninety miles from purchase !!

No, of course they didn't stop! I did !!

I collected all the pieces off the road and waited ......... nothing. The next day, to help with the 'grief and fury', I went back to the spot and picked up some more of the smaller pieces. I couldn't understand how it happened, I had my wheels in the gutter and couldn't have been closer to the verge (I drive a big 4x4, so this is my habit on country roads). I sat down with the bits and pieces and started to reassemble them (a sort of therapy I suppose). Guess what I found ... In the end, I had two T5 black lower casing shells and my white self-coloured upper shell. There was no paint transfer (I had my CSi head on by now).

Just my luck, being the SE, there is so much tech in there, including the blind spot assist gubbins, aerial, radar sensors ... Grrrrrrrr.

I'm going to try and rebuild it all and maybe dodge the absolute fortune that the dealer will be looking for.

Ho hum. Happy days ahead eh?

Ghostbuster · Nov 2, 2025

I am really sick of folks just lately especially ‘van man’. I have been showered in stones twice recently and suffered paint damage.
Two Royal Mail vans in a high speed pursuit the first time and the next a delivery driver coming towards me that made me grit my teeth, clench the steering wheel and brace for impact.
I expected for the mirror to be gone but again more paint damage.

Hawthorn37 · Nov 2, 2025

I feel your pain, and anger. We drive through lanes around Somerset and Devon on a very regular basis, and so far we’ve had one full contact mirror clash, and a couple of brush-bys. Thankfully the mirror has stayed intact, but with a bit of paint scuffing. We’re also used to lane driving, and hug the hedge. Unfortunately some drivers are both in a hurry, and don’t move over. Wherever it looks like we will have a close encounter, I raise the electric mirror up, but sometimes it just happens too fast. If you look at the damage on delivery and works vans mirrors, you wonder how many bits of broken plastic and glass they’ve left behind!

wildslammer22 · Tuesday at 1:02 AM

Toobie said:
Hello Again All

I'm sure this has happened to others - offside wing mirror destroyed - I had only travelled ninety miles from purchase !!

No, of course they didn't stop! I did !!

I collected all the pieces off the road and waited ......... nothing. The next day, to help with the 'grief and fury', I went back to the spot and picked up some more of the smaller pieces. I couldn't understand how it happened, I had my wheels in the gutter and couldn't have been closer to the verge (I drive a big 4x4, so this is my habit on country roads). I sat down with the bits and pieces and started to reassemble them (a sort of therapy I suppose). Guess what I found ... In the end, I had two T5 black lower casing shells and my white self-coloured upper shell. There was no paint transfer (I had my CSi head on by now).

Just my luck, being the SE, there is so much tech in there, including the blind spot assist gubbins, aerial, radar sensors ... Grrrrrrrr.

I'm going to try and rebuild it all and maybe dodge the absolute fortune that the dealer will be looking for.

Ho hum. Happy days ahead eh?

Happened to me in France, I feel your pain and frustration. I ended up ordering a replacement from the wing mirror company, they had to order it from Germany so it took a while to deliver, they also offer a paint service which was pretty reasonable. So mine arrived in about three weeks, all colour coded and I fitted it myself which was a pain but doable. Saved me £2-300 vs a dealer. Only issue was it was supposed to come with the DAB aerial but it didn’t. Rather than go through the hassle of returning it rescued and reused the one from my shattered mirror.

Lambeth Cali · Tuesday at 10:21 AM

Happened to me years ago in France.
The killer cost was having it painted to match the van. It was like £300 extra.

Toobie · Tuesday at 4:08 PM

Hello Lambeth Cali
Thank you for sharing my pain.
S&P

Toobie · Tuesday at 4:10 PM

wildslammer22 said:
Happened to me in France, I feel your pain and frustration. I ended up ordering a replacement from the wing mirror company, they had to order it from Germany so it took a while to deliver, they also offer a paint service which was pretty reasonable. So mine arrived in about three weeks, all colour coded and I fitted it myself which was a pain but doable. Saved me £2-300 vs a dealer. Only issue was it was supposed to come with the DAB aerial but it didn’t. Rather than go through the hassle of returning it rescued and reused the one from my shattered mirror.

Hello wildslammer22

Thank you for sharing, good to hear you did the hybrid DiY thing that I'm intending to do.

All the best
S&P

Perfectos · Tuesday at 7:16 PM

If you have folding mirrors make sure you get a replacement that folds (most don't)

wildslammer22 · Tuesday at 8:06 PM

Lambeth Cali said:
Happened to me years ago in France.
The killer cost was having it painted to match the van. It was like £300 extra.

I paid £260 including the colour match paint job. It was folding, heated, blind spot mirror and supposedly the DAB aerial but that was missing. As you said VW would have wanted double that in paint and labour on top of the parts!