So outside of my engine issues, it is -4 today and my mirrors are frozen over.

Ive looked at some previous threads and the consensus is that it is temperature dependant.

After driving 15 minutes in -4 my side mirrors are still frozen over.

I have OEM m5 non folding mirrors.
Is there a fuse i should check first? Is the next step just to pull the glass off and test contacts?

Thanks

 

I looked up the manual, in case they come on if you turn on the rear defrost, but it also says the come on automatically when it is below a certain temperature.

 

So i pulled the mirrors and its a strange one. My mirrors are the heated/electrochromatic mirrors [4 pin] , but the housings are only heated i think. [2 pin]

My car has the SA430 option originally. Does that mean if i yank the mirrors there should be more wires inside?

Can the 2 pins be plugged into the 4 pin to get heat? Anyone know the pinout

 

Sorry can't be of help, but as an aside, how do you know how to pull them apart? Do you have one of those Bentley manuals or something? Every once in a while, I come across something in the car there's no good instructions how to take it apart on the web...

 

The two wires at the sides of the mirror (white covered; soldered directly to the mirror) are the wires from the heating option. These wires are internally connected to the connector; by elimination check which pins these are in the socket and you know which are actually connected to the car.

 

are you referring to the ones that seem to be covered in a big glob of glue? Hmm i wonder if i can peel the mirror without destroying it

 

Yes, the early versions had connectors directly on these locations. For the E60 they made a wire-bridge (the black wire) which they connected the original connection (transparent soldering) to the white flex-print (white glue blob) to be able to have one connector (marked with blue dot).

I would suggest to use a needle in the location of the transparent soldering (so the side where the wire is soldered). From the picture it seems feasible to stick a sharp needle to connect to the wire.

A last minute tip, judging from the thickness of the flex-print wires, I would consider the most thick ones (relatively large current) to be the heating, i.e. when looking from the blue dot on the connector: the first and second wire. The last two would be the dimming since it is only a small current signal to dimm.

 

the big connector is for the dimming, there should be two prongs sticking out of the glass, onto which those two black wires fit over, for the heating function.

 

it looks like the dimming connector is missing from the housing...