Folding Mirrors - am I being thick?

[Tweed98]

Well I can only assume your cars for the past 25 years have been top-end models, or have had the folding mirrors added as a single option or part of an option pack.
We’ve had dozens of cars over the past 20 years, folding mirrors have been very rare even when the rest of the car is kitted out with all manner of stuff like leather heated and ventilated seats and pano roofs etc etc blablabla
Welcome to the world of ‘poverty spec’ base models

I had to spec folding mirrors on my '07 A3, '14 Focus ST and I think on my '18 Leon.

Its all because of the new rigorous WLTP figures, every addition has to be tested and due to cost and time taken (I'm told test centers are not that common) they don't want to test every possible combination so that is why we are mostly stuck with the choice of trim levels and sometimes some additional packs.
Of course the things I want like parking sensors, folding mirrors heated seats are always in the top level pack so Seat and VW got thrown out straight away and we got the missus a Puma, although the leasing agent got me a great deal on the ST-Line Vignale, so we wound up with the top level one anyway.

 

[siteguru]

I have never had a car with electrically folding mirrors ... not even my 2012 Golf GT had them.

 

[Rolfe]

I have never had a car with electrically folding mirrors ... not even my 2012 Golf GT had them.

My 2009 Golf certainly did. I've had that car for nearly 14 years and relied on them a lot.

 

[siteguru]

I suspect the 170hp GTD would have had them, but I had the 140hp GT (diesel).

 

[Rolfe]

I had new garage doors fitted a couple of months ago and that actually gained me an extra three inches of width. Sometimes these things are deceptive, and I haven't been able to try getting the MG4 in yet. Maybe it will work if I just fold the driver's side mirror, which is easy enough. I can try!

I suspect the 170hp GTD would have had them, but I had the 140hp GT (diesel).

Well, to come clean, mine was the GTI Mk6. As you can probably see in that photo if you look closely enough.

 

[bowfer]

Well, to come clean, mine was the GTI Mk6. As you can probably see in that photo if you look closely enough.

My 2019…or was it 2020…I’ve had a few cars since, AW version Polo GTi didn’t have folding mirrors.
My V1 Born does but, given the shape of the mirrors, I don’t see the point as I don’t think much width is being saved at all.
Handy to look outside and see if it’s locked at a glance though.
We’ve got a double garage, but i cannot be bothered with the faff of putting cars in/out.
The traditional benefit of using a garage (frost protection) is negated by pre-heating in an EV.
Clearing the cars of snow or clearing the empty drive of snow seems the same to me as well.

 

[Charlie Delta Tango]

I’ve got a Trophy and have the electric wing mirrors set to automatically fold closed when I lock the car, which is great.
BUT what about folding them at other times like parking in a cramped space or in a carwash? I can’t find any option or button to do this. Am I just being super thick?

Push the mirror adjustment knob down and mirrors retract.

 

[Rolfe]

We’ve got a double garage, but i cannot be bothered with the faff of putting cars in/out.

Well, if you have to retract the wing mirrors manually, it's going to be a bit of a faff, right?

Clearing the cars of snow or clearing the empty drive of snow seems the same to me as well.

Good grief no, did you see the photo? Also, I have a small petrol-engine mechanical snow-clearing machine, a bit like a big lawnmower, and that won't clear snow off a car!

My garage has four double metal-cased power points in it. I have an electric car. Why would I not put it in the garage?

 

[bowfer]

Why would I not put it in the garage?

Because it doesn’t fit.

 

[Rolfe]

I think it does though. I'll let you know once the Golf is off my hands. (The insurance have paid me for it, so it's up to them to collect it. I'm just hiding it inside for now!)

 

[Ian Key]

You could always test the theory that the faster you go the thinner the car

 

[Rolfe]

 

[Davn]

The MG4 SE only achieves its low low price due to aggressive cost cutting all over the car, so yes, it isn't unreasonable.

Would be better if you could choose the options you wanted but then the car would cost more to make with all the variations on the assembly line to manage. We can't have it both ways.

I've worked in automotive and know how aggressive costings can be but don't believe the spec difference between the too could be explained by the extra cost I think the lower spec model is propping up the trophy

 

[tsedge]

I've worked in automotive and know how aggressive costings can be but don't believe the spec difference between the too could be explained by the extra cost I think the lower spec model is propping up the trophy

What's your explanation then?

 

[Davn]

What's your explanation then?

For what?

 

[tsedge]

For what?

You said you don't think the lack on the SE can be explained by cost.

What does explain it then?

 

[RichDragon]

Luckily I've bought the Trophy specifically to reverse into my garage, pressing the button down at the point my garage door frame would rip the mirrors off and then pressing the button down again after moving back about a foot. For some weird reason I can never centre the darned car and always go back at a slight angle, I've tried putting lines on the garage floor and using the software lines on the reversing camera. My solution? Stick reflective tape on the small freezer I'm reversing towards...oh boy to be young again and be a perfect spatial driver. My main reason for the MG4 is the seagull 360 view as it helps enormously with accurate parking but just not with getting into my tiny garage.

 

[Rolfe]

My garage isn't tiny but the door width is an issue. I could certainly get my Golf in without folding its mirrors (although I was a bit rash a couple of times and did damage), and I recently had new garage doors fitted which gave me an extra three inches too.

My system was like yours. Reverse until the wing mirrors were close to the door frame, fold them in, reverse about a foot more, then unfold them again. Worked. It didn't really occur to me that a new car in 2023 wouldn't have mirrors that did that. But then I wouldn't have bought a Trophy for that alone even if I'd known, so we are where we are.

I won't get the chance to try getting the MG4 into the garage until the salvage lorry comes to take the Golf away (it's currently hiding its injuries inside the garage) and it's very hard to guess what the clearance will be. I'm hoping I might be able to make it work by only folding the driver's side mirror, which wouldn't be so hard to do.

 

[bowfer]

My garage isn't tiny but the door width is an issue. I could certainly get my Golf in without folding its mirrors (although I was a bit rash a couple of times and did damage), and I recently had new garage doors fitted which gave me an extra three inches too.

My system was like yours. Reverse until the wing mirrors were close to the door frame, fold them in, reverse about a foot more, then unfold them again. Worked. It didn't really occur to me that a new car in 2023 wouldn't have mirrors that did that. But then I wouldn't have bought a Trophy for that alone even if I'd known, so we are where we are.

I won't get the chance to try getting the MG4 into the garage until the salvage lorry comes to take the Golf away (it's currently hiding its injuries inside the garage) and it's very hard to guess what the clearance will be. I'm hoping I might be able to make it work by only folding the driver's side mirror, which wouldn't be so hard to do.

The MG4 width is 1836mm, 2060mm including mirrors.
So there you go, you won’t need to guess the clearance now.

 

[Rolfe]

Not when I go out and measure it. In daylight!

There's also the question of getting good at putting a particular car in there. When I had a courtesy car (which had folding wing mirrors and a rear-view camera) I was very bad at getting the line right to get in first time. The cameras actually didn't help and I started ignoring them. I wondered if I was going nuts. Then I got my Golf back and I was getting in first go out of the box. I don't think the two cars were much different in width, it was just practice.