Heated Mirror Retrofit to Sport and Touring Models

twintrbo

Member
As promised here is the write up! I never had a car without heated mirrors before and frankly, it sucks! After finding out that heated mirrors are pre wired to the door and fairly simple to retrofit, I decided to do the install and post it here for the rest of you lucky owners.

What you will need:
Left and Right side heated mirror glass
T-25 torx driver
8mm socket or I used my klein 10 in 1 screwdriver shaft
Plug pins from computer power supply
18" of 18ga wire or similar
Soldering tool
Electrical tape or heat shrink

Step 1: Get the mirror off. The tweeter covers the mirror bolts so just pull it straight off. Make sure the 2 black plastic clips came out and are solidly in their holders so they dont fall back into the door later (sucked). There are 3 bolts that hold the mirror on so take those out while supporting the mirror from the outside. It wont fall off but better safe than sorry. Take the mirror off from outside and then unclip the harness connector. Make note of how the wires lay into the mirror housing so the clip can go back where it came from. I tried unplugging it before I unscrewed it but I couldn't get the clip to separate.



Step 2: Take it apart. Put the mirror on a nice soft towel and take it apart. Take note of where the attachment points are on the new glass so you know where to pull without snapping the old ones. Push the glass on the outside edge all the way in until you can get your fingers behind the glass on the inside edge. Try to feel where the smaller ball joint is and get fingers on either side and pull from that point. If you pull from the edge of the glass, IT WILL BREAK. Trust me from past experience, you cannot pull from anywhere but where the ball joints are. The glass WILL break 100%. Once the joint pops, you will need to pull the other 2 joints. You will be freaked out that the glass will break but follow my advice and it will be fine.



So you got the glass off and now you need to unscrew the 3 t-25 screws on the bottom of the mirror. There is enough slack to now separate the mirror and get the wiring through.





Step 3: New Pins. If you noticed, there are 5 wires that go to the mirror from the door but only 3 to the mirror. The 2 that are NOT used are the heater feeds. I found an old thread on doing this to a Mazda 3 but the plug seems to be reversed. Therefore there are male pins on the door side but females on the mirror side. Which sucks because its WAY harder to source the pins without knowing what they even look like. Fortunately I have a lot of electronic crap laying around being a tinkerer and electrician. I'm also a hell of a Macguyver if I do say so myself :) So here is what I did, I took the plug from an old computer power supply I'm no longer using. I believe this particular plug was used to power the floppy drive. You might be able to cut this off your computer if you need to, odds are you will never need it if its not already in use. Due to its construction, they are a cinch to remove and slipped right into the harness plug.





You must pry up this retention clip with the black dot when you slip the new pins in. The 2 pins on the other side of the connector that were not being used are your connections for the heating element. There is no polarity so it makes no difference which wire connects where as long as there is a loop. The retention clips on the pins themselves should be facing the existing wires when you slide them in. They should go about 80% of the way with no issue and then use a small flat screwdriver to press the rest of the way in. Be careful to push straight so the pins dont bend. The clip with the black dot will no longer go all the way back in but the plug still functions fine.



Step 4: Wiring it up. Rather than try to remove the wire from the pins and likely destroy them. I extended the pin wiring by soldering them and insulating the connections. Once the wires are fed through, this connection will be in a tube within the mirror and will not be exposed or even visible. Now fish the wires from the plug to the inside of the mirror housing. Just follow the route of the factory wiring and even up the lengths so it can easily be tucked back into the housing. The factory wiring is encased in foam but its easiest to just stay outside of it and not tamper with it. Once they are fished through you can reassemble the mirror. Now that its back together lets go to the final connection, the glass. The factory included small spade connectors so you could easily change the glass if damaged. I dont really see this as necessary plus I havent a clue where you would get these connectors easily. I figure if the mirror is ever busted, it would most likely require a full replacement and that solves that issue! lol There was a small existing hole that helps route the wires away from the motor and give room for slack behind it as well. I put about 2" behind the motor through that hole and made a loop through the molded in clip on the mirror frame to keep them out of the mechanism. At this point, I simply soldered the wires directly to the element without connectors. Be careful not to overheat this when you solder it. You must tin the mirror tab first, then the wire. Then you can easily join the two. I imagine its heat resistant to a good degree but still......You can also put some heat shrink on this connection if you are worried about corrosion.



Step 5: Reassembly. Now for the nerve wracking part, clipping the new glass on! It would be in your best interest to plug the mirrors in and test operation at this point, you dont want to have to remove the glass again to figure out why its not working. Plug it in, hang it loosely with one screw, start the car and put on the rear defroster. Within 10 seconds you should feel the glass getting warm. Its warm? Awesome!! Now, remember how the old glass had to be pulled off at the joints? You best find those points to push on the new glass. Take the mirror off again and go back to your table. Hold the housing in one hand, I used 4 fingers on the other hand to circle the area where the main joint was and pressed together, slowly and steadily increasing pressure until it popped on. Then you must work on the smaller of the 3 ball joints. Find those 2 locations from the outside and use your thumb to press until they pop on. Now go back outside and test them again to make absolutely certain they work before you bolt it on. Reinstall the 3 bolts, push the harness clip back in, pop the tweeter back on and admire the job no one else but another 5 owner would even care about lol.
 
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Thanks for posting!

Wow, that is easy. Courious, if the wires are tucked away from the elements, what is the tape/shrink tubing for?

Also, how much wiring slack, if any, is needed?
 
Thanks for posting!

Wow, that is easy. Courious, if the wires are tucked away from the elements, what is the tape/shrink tubing for?

Also, how much wiring slack, if any, is needed?

In my situation, I used pins with wires in them already and I extended the length. Therefore the splice had to be insulated. If you can find pins with enough slack on them, you dont need to insulate. I left about 2" behind the mirror motor and a 1" U shaped loop from that hole to the element through the existing mirror clip, for mirror movement. I'll edit that info in.
 
FWIW I just saw on another thread that 7/64" spade connectors will fit the element tabs. They are available from lots of different places if you dont want to solder the connections.
 
Floppy drive? Now THAT'S something you don't hear every day! Thanks for taking the time to write this up. This is so getting done!!! Now this winter, I won't have to drive home in the left lane to avoid lane changes :) So could the other wires be for the turn signal??
 
No, definitely not the turn signals. There is room in the plugs for additional pins but no provision for the wiring. That being said, it isn't that difficult to figure it out. For an '06, '07, '10 or '12 it would be a no brainer to get the '13 mirrors with integrated signals. I wouldn't do it on my year since I already have them on the sides.
 
No, definitely not the turn signals. There is room in the plugs for additional pins but no provision for the wiring. That being said, it isn't that difficult to figure it out. For an '06, '07, '10 or '12 it would be a no brainer to get the '13 mirrors with integrated signals. I wouldn't do it on my year since I already have them on the sides.

Easy to add a turn signal :) Has been done before.

There is space to run the turn signals on the side with the other wires. I did not test if the other wire was for it though.
 
Glad I could pass this one along. It reminds me of my sisters old Toyota Celica. Her ST model didn't have a power antenna and the dealer said it couldn't be done, you had to buy the $2500 GT package. My dad bought a GT antenna to try to wire it somehow and when he popped open the trim panel, there was the connector to plug it in. It even lowered the antenna when you popped in a cassette tape. Bunch of asses involved there. Toyota for not making it an option at any cost and the dealer for lying about it.

I know the 5 was built with a price point in mind but I would have loved a little more optional equipment.
 
OK. Apparently I am a little slow failed to realize I now have a GT and not a Sport anymore b/c I've always wanted to do this on the Sport (comment about having this on my ebay watch list for over a year...) (hand) (hand) (chair)



Anyhow, figure in my moment of stupidly I can share some helpful comments/suggestions for others.
-Pop off/on the glass while the housing unit is still mounted to the door -this provides more leverage and it comes off very easily. You don't have to worry about holding the housing down while attempting to pop the glass or scratching things.
-If after popping off the sail panel (the tweeter) and one of the black clips come off panels and gets stuck in the door, I recommend stuffing paper (napkin/tissue) in the opening below to prevent it from possibly falling down into the door. I had one fall down but luckily it did not fall all the way down and I was able to fish it out.
-The leads on the glass elements appear to be narrow speaker leads. You can use .110 female spade connectors. What I recommend is using one of these but remove the plastic part. I would also suggest using heat shrink tubing to seal the connector after you've secured it onto the lead. I image a good bit of water gets back there when you wash the car.
-Here's what the stock wiring looks like.
Mazda5RearviewMirror.jpg
 
OK. Apparently I am a little slow failed to realize I now have a GT and not a Sport anymore b/c I've always wanted to do this on the Sport (comment about having this on my ebay watch list for over a year...) (hand) (hand) (chair)

Did you remove your already heated mirrors to check how you can install them?!
 
Anyone else enjoying this upgrade yet? I used it a few times this week just for laughs and its the best and cheapest upgrade Ive done, so worthwhile!
 
Heated mirror refrofit also for 2012-1015?

Sorry to dig up an old thread, but I'm trying the same on my 2015.
Instructions were perfect for mirror disassembly/rewire/reassembly, but seems I get no +12V from the door wiring while enabling Rear Defrost.

Using the wiring schematic, I already confirmed the M DEF 7.5A fuse (Engine fuse box) is there, also got +12V on both sides of it when defrost is enabled.
Could they have removed the some wiring needed between the fuse box and both doors connectors on 2012+ models?

I will dig a little further this weekend with my meter to find out what I might have missed.
 
I got a PM about this issue about 6 months ago, also with a 3rd gen vehicle. turbonium959 was the guy but he never told me if he resolved the problem. I dont really understand why that would happen unless there is a relay or something that isn't installed. I would think its difficult for them to have a different harness but you never know. Unfortunately, without the car in front of me I cant figure out why it works that way. Have you accounted for what the wires there actually do? Do the 3rd gen cars have a separate switch for the heated mirrors? My old maxima was like that so if you can find one with heated mirrors you can check it out. Good luck with it!
 
There should be no other switch or relay. This is a PIC I grabbed from the schematics, should be as simple as previous GEN, unless they disconnected something or removed a wire from the harness.
I'll share my findings once I disconnect and probe those door connectors (C-29 and C-30)
C-04 Might be difficult to reach under the dash...

 
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You're absolutely on the right track. You should be looking for a Light Green wire in the door if I'm reading that right.
 
I'm making slight progress here: I was able to trace Light Green wire up to C-04 Connector inside, under the dash.
But was unable to get a clear image of what's between C-04 -> C-29 using a snake lighted camera.

I also got the Light Green/ Black wire inside the doors. I just hope they haven't "deleted" that Light Green wire from the inside hardness. That could make my install way more difficult that it needs to be.

Will keep digging more and report back!
 
I'm the guy with the old walkthrough from the 3. I did this on a '08 Mz5 which is when I discovered the wiring was opposite the 3. I ended up just using a wire tap onto the factory wiring, though to be honest if I'd had a computer graveyard handy I would have done the same as the OP. ;) Hoping to jump into the project in the next week or so with my 2012 5 (picked up yesterday). Now I'm hoping the '12 model doesn't have the issue the '15 apparently has.. Guess I'll be pulling the multimeter out and checking the wires before I disassemble everything.
 
Now I'm hoping the '12 model doesn't have the issue the '15 apparently has.. Guess I'll be pulling the multimeter out and checking the wires before I disassemble everything.

I suggest you have a thorough look under the dash, passenger side (behind glovebox). A mirror and a good flashlight might be enough to see from both sides of this connector.

On mine I can find Mirror Defrost +12V LG (Light Green) wire coming from the firewall, but it stops there. Nothing is connected on the other side on C04. Door harness is complete though.
That a project I'll finish later this summer... but from my understanding, I'll need to tap from this wire to feed both doors harnesses.
 
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