After having the aspheric mirrors on my protege long enough, I must say I'm spoiled. So I got sick of the bad stock mirrors and decided to spend the big bucks on upgrading to the EDM mirrors
after being dicked around from mazda for so long (in order to get a good price), I said **** it and went ahead and got a pair of junk yard mirrors from Europe instead of waiting longer.. they just came in yesterday and they're in good shape!
In all European countries the 3 is sold, all the 3s that have painted side mirrors are power mirrors WITH a heater, so there wasn't the problem of having to sort between heated and non-heated... and before I even splurged on them, I checked and found out that the US models already have the wiring for the heated mirrors, even the fuse is installed! Installation is basically plug and play!
The only "complication" I had is having to take apart the stock mirrors and the EDM mirrors because they weren't the same colors.. so to that effect, I had to do that in order to make it the right color... basically just swapping the color shells over
the stock mirrors REALLY suck for visbility, more so than the protege because it's not perpendicular to the window but slanted instead... so basically you CAN'T have it adjusted to "one size fits all"; you either have to adjust it out to see traffic and have no parking aid, or adjust it in to barely see the side of the car for parking aid but NOT see traffic... you could do that a lot easier with mirrors that are just perpendicular to the window, like the protege's... anyhow, the EDM mirrors takes care of this and now I can just set it to where I want it and leave it alone... I can now see both the traffic all the way to my blind spot (like my protege's) and barely see the side of the car to help with parking
the EDM mirrors are convex on BOTH sides, but the driver's side also has an aspheric portion as a blind spot aid... they do NOT have warning labels unlike USDM passenger side mirrors (because it's "obvious" in Europe), but the "objects in mirror..." rule still applies, so a different method of driving is needed... but since I'm already used to the ones on my protege, it's no big deal
since I wanted to have heated mirrors also to clear off frost on cold mornings/nights during the winter (yes it does get cold in north texas), this is a much better choice than the canadian spec mirrors which are just heated versions of the USDM ones... the mirror heaters are activated with the rear defroster
here's the before and after pics:
after being dicked around from mazda for so long (in order to get a good price), I said **** it and went ahead and got a pair of junk yard mirrors from Europe instead of waiting longer.. they just came in yesterday and they're in good shape!
In all European countries the 3 is sold, all the 3s that have painted side mirrors are power mirrors WITH a heater, so there wasn't the problem of having to sort between heated and non-heated... and before I even splurged on them, I checked and found out that the US models already have the wiring for the heated mirrors, even the fuse is installed! Installation is basically plug and play!
The only "complication" I had is having to take apart the stock mirrors and the EDM mirrors because they weren't the same colors.. so to that effect, I had to do that in order to make it the right color... basically just swapping the color shells over
the stock mirrors REALLY suck for visbility, more so than the protege because it's not perpendicular to the window but slanted instead... so basically you CAN'T have it adjusted to "one size fits all"; you either have to adjust it out to see traffic and have no parking aid, or adjust it in to barely see the side of the car for parking aid but NOT see traffic... you could do that a lot easier with mirrors that are just perpendicular to the window, like the protege's... anyhow, the EDM mirrors takes care of this and now I can just set it to where I want it and leave it alone... I can now see both the traffic all the way to my blind spot (like my protege's) and barely see the side of the car to help with parking
the EDM mirrors are convex on BOTH sides, but the driver's side also has an aspheric portion as a blind spot aid... they do NOT have warning labels unlike USDM passenger side mirrors (because it's "obvious" in Europe), but the "objects in mirror..." rule still applies, so a different method of driving is needed... but since I'm already used to the ones on my protege, it's no big deal
since I wanted to have heated mirrors also to clear off frost on cold mornings/nights during the winter (yes it does get cold in north texas), this is a much better choice than the canadian spec mirrors which are just heated versions of the USDM ones... the mirror heaters are activated with the rear defroster
here's the before and after pics:
