Fuelly Forums - Where do you aim your mirror?

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Where do you aim your mirror?

I have noticed many people aim thier side mirrors to look behind them. I don't know why. Thats that the center rearview mirror is for. I have always used my side mirrors for sideways/ behind, and Ideally it would eliminate the blind spot. Why don't they go in side the car near the A pillar?? they would be right there easy to adjust, and stay clean, and best of all be more areodynamic. There is a way to remove it but still have side morrors.

check your state, alot of states only require that you have two mirrors, and don't speculate where exactly they are, but a few minutes looking up state statuts should tell you.

as for where they are pointed, I agree, to adjust mine, I sit upright, and lean over twards the door a bit, then adjust it so the side of the car is just out of view, when I'm sitting upright, this gives me a near perfect view of what is to the side of my car, then as someone is passing you watch them go from being in view of the rear view mirror, to being in view of the side view, to being where you can see them out of the corner of your eye thru the window, no blind spot at all.

caprice -

I use big fisheyes on left and right side mirrors :

https://home.earthlink.net/~cfg83/gas...de_mirrors.jpg

I don't use the interior fisheye anymore, that was an experiment.

The only thing you have to get used to is the *very* small size of the cars in the fisheyes. If you can recognize the car, then it is too close for changing lanes.

Overall, I make it so that I can always see the side of my car in the mirror, maybe 10-20% of the total flat part of my mirror is devoted to that. That gives me a point of reference. I also try to look over my shoulder when I want to change lanes.

But, with the fisheyes, there is no such thing as a blind spot.

CarloSW2

I use a 2" fisheye mirror on the interior, top side of both of my outside mirrors. I aim the outside mirrrors down the side of the car, just so I can barely see the edge of my car.

This allows me to see if someone is coming up on either side of me. The fisheye mirror makes it so I can see if anyone is next to me, even if they are creaping up on me, so that they aren't quite far enough forward for me to see with my peripheral vision and I can't quite see them in the mirror without jinking my neck around.

I've used the fisheye's since I got very used to them saving me from some costly mistakes when I drove a truck on the freeways of LA. They have saved me from some potential conflicts over the use of space.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ryland (Post 42578)

as for where they are pointed, I agree, to adjust mine, I sit upright, and lean over twards the door a bit, then adjust it so the side of the car is just out of view, when I'm sitting upright, this gives me a near perfect view of what is to the side of my car, then as someone is passing you watch them go from being in view of the rear view mirror, to being in view of the side view, to being where you can see them out of the corner of your eye thru the window, no blind spot at all.

That how I have set up mine as well. Cover 99% of your blind spots

My passengerside is useless.... I have it adjusted out as far as it will go and 1/2 of my mirror is still pointed towards the side of the truck!

I really wished I could see the back tire. My driveway is very narrow. When I back out I have to hang my head out the window to insure I don't back into the ditch!

Put a 2" fisheye on it, like I described. Then you can look in the fisheye and see the edge of the driveway. Works great for seeing the white lines by the side of the car when your parking and those types of things.

Is the right side mirror a manual, or an electric? It sounds like it might be electric, but someone forced the mirror and it jumped the teeth and is farther in than it's supposed to be. If that is the case, you can just push on the outside edge of the mirror, to push the whole thing back out. They have nylon gears, so this can happen a number of times, without really ruining anything, or at least I haven't ruined any of mine, by doing this.

i set up my mirrors so that if there is someone behind me, no matter where they are, i will see their headlights in only 1 mirror. this is also useful since my car is 4 inches off the ground and any truck or suv's headlights really become a niusance. i am strongly considering interior mirror conversion... i dont drive fast enough any more to justify it though...

I used my brothers car to help me set both. i set his car so i couldn't see in rear view mirrow and then adjusted side mirrors so i could see it.

Ahhh the beauty of motorized mirrors - when I back up in the xB we have these poles "protecting" the bulkheads into the basement that are just about even with the windows and with enough blind spots in the rear quarter I came close to hitting them more than once so use the outside mirrors to line up with when backing up. If it tilt them down all the way I can see the rear tires and the curb so I don't hit it and can check for flats while driving too. Sometimes they don't see sideways enough for that blind spot where passing cars are NOT supposed to be hanging out but often do. Would be nice to get another fisheye inside the door window for those highway merges. Would be really cool to be able to fold them in with remote cable control for those times pulling into tight spots or some extra MPG during high speed driving.

If you own a car that also happens to be sold in Europe (this includes most Japanese models) or just about anywhere else in the world, theres a good chance that a curved glass version of your outside driver's side mirror exists. Flat glass driver's side mirror used on US market cars is the exception rather than the norm. US legislation requires a completely flat mirror on the driver's side and if the manufacturer so chooses, a curved glass mirror on the passenger side with the words "OBJECTS IN MIRROR ARE CLOSER THAN THE APPEAR" etched into the glass. Don't ask me why, its just the way America is. You won't find these words or flat glass anywhere else in the world.
Last summer picked up this driver's side mirror in Europe with a dotted line down the middle. The whole mirror is parabolic but the area to the left of the dotted line is substantially more curved from side to side in order to cover your blind spot. In practice you can see from directly behind to 2 lanes over and next to the car with this mirror. Its perfect. Every car in America should have had this mirror from the factory. This goes along with my rants about e-code headlights, but thats another story all together.

With the flash you can clearly see the demarcation line between parabolic on the right, and curved on the left.
https://farm1.static.flickr.com/158/4...fcd49e48_o.jpg

In natural light the dotted line fades away and you are left with a clear view and no blind spots. The mirror has a very wide field of vision without shrinking objects like a traditional parabolic mirror.
https://farm1.static.flickr.com/160/4...116d9f6d_o.jpg

The moral of the story is contact a dealer or check out ebay in Europe. You'll probably find curved or parabolic mirror for the driver's side of your car. This should be a direct drop in swap. No double sided tape required.

Well, since I backed into the garage

Since I backed out of the garage a month-or-so ago, hit some ice and thwacked the driver's side mirror, the glass only tilts outward now.

It was an inadvertent way to force a blind-spot-free setting. Now instead of the usual setting of using the right-hand side of mirror even the length of the car, it points outward and shows any vehicle in my blind spot. I still do the over the shoulder check of the lane out of habit, but a few tests proved that unnecessary and fully functional.

RH77