Cars Power Side Mirror Not Working How to Diagnose Mirror Switches and Motors

Do your mirrors not work properly? In this video, I'm gonna show you where to start and how to fix it.

Some mirrors have many different functions, not just moving to the glass, but also the power fold, they have blinkers in them and they have heated mirrors. We're gonna start out with just the glass not moving properly. Locate your mirror switch and make sure you're on the right function for the correct mirror.

If you want the driver's side, click that, if you want the passenger's side, click it that way, and then make your adjustments. See if it works going down, going up, going left, and going right. And see if you can hear the motor if the motor is working or if it's not working.

And if you go to use the switch and the mirror doesn't work at all, one quick thing you can do is actually switch to the opposite side and try the switch again and see if that mirror actually moves, which that mirror actually does move. If you try that other side and it doesn't work most likely the problem is in the switch, but you always wanna check the fuses first. And if it does work on the other side, chances are there's something wrong with this mirror.

In this case, double-check your fuses just in case it's on a different circuit. Most of the time the mirrors are gonna be on the same circuit. Check your fuses. On this vehicle, the fuse we're looking at is actually the DDM, which is the driver's door module. Now every vehicle is gonna be a little bit different. Chances are you're not gonna have a fuse that's actually labeled mirror, so you may just have to check all the fuses.

Most of the time you can adjust the mirrors without the key in the ignition, but before you take anything apart, make sure if you turn the key on, that the mirrors still don't work. We know this mirror is not working and the other mirror is working. Our fuse checked out. It is good. So at this point, I need to remove the door panel and access the connector for the mirror switch and the mirror connector.

The connector for the mirror is actually located right here. The first thing you wanna do is just wiggle that connector and see if it's loose. If it was loose and not connected, plug it back in and see if your mirrors working. Here's the mirror switch. Power comes into the mirror switch through these wires and then goes through. And as you're pushing down on these buttons, the power and ground goes through this wire, and then out to the mirror switch to move the motor.

For the circuits on the mirror motors, we have these three wires. Sometimes you may have three wires, sometimes you may have four. It uses a common wire, which is the yellow wire. And then the other two wires, one makes it go vertical and one makes it go horizontal.

To make the mirror move, you're gonna need power and ground. To visualize this a little bit easier, I'm gonna use a nine-volt battery. You know you have a power or a positive side, and then you also have a ground side on the battery. If you think of this, like the car battery, if you have positive on the yellow wire and negative on the blue wire, the mirror is gonna move in one direction. If you take this battery, flip it around, and you have positive on the blue wire and negative on the yellow wire, then the mirror's gonna move in the opposite direction.

Now, to get vertical movement, you use the green wire. So you're gonna do the same thing, positive on one side, negative on the yellow wire. It's gonna move one way, flip it around, and it's gonna move in the opposite direction. So that being said, you need power and ground for the motor to work in one direction or the other.

To test for power and ground, we're gonna use a test light. And because the ends of the test lighter too big to back probe or to get anything in there, we added some wire and just tape some paper clips to the wire. We're just gonna double-check our test light, make sure it works.

Put one side on the battery negative and one side on the battery positive, and it lights up, which means it's working properly. So now we're gonna test the blue wire and the yellow wire. Just take one paper clip, slide it into that position. The blue wire, make sure they're not touching and then activate the switch, and we can see we have power.

So that's working properly. In that case, if the mirror wasn't moving when we had power there, that would mean the mirror motor is bad. And if the mirror motor is bad, sometimes you can replace just the mirror motor assembly, or you just replace the whole mirror assembly.

And to test the other circuit, we would put the paperclip in the yellow wire and then put the other one in the green wire. And it does. If the test light didn't come on during those last tests, most likely it is the switch. Just make sure the power and ground is getting to the switch. If it is, then the switch needs to be replaced.

When diagnosing the passenger side, you're gonna do the same procedure. You would just have to take off that door panel as well. Now, those tests were just strictly for the mirror movement, not for a blinker, not for a heater, or not for folding mirrors. If you had a vehicle that had those other functions, there would just be more wires coming out of this and you would test those in the same procedure.

Put a test light in between where the power and ground is going to activate that circuit. I hope you enjoyed this video, and it helped you out. If you did, make sure you subscribe to our channel, ring the bell, turn on all notifications so you don't miss any of our videos.