don't bother with a Fiat dealer - they will charge an arm and a leg for a wing mirror. when I damaged one of my long arm ones they quoted me £350

check out www.wingmirrorman.co.uk - they supply most wing mirrors including Fiat Ducato ones - just make sure you spec the right one. mine cost me just under £200 from them and I fitted it myself.

they're not difficult to fit, you just need a bit of bravery to go digging around in the door and locating the wiring looms if it's electric and heated like mine. no doubt you can google for instructions.

 

whether the garage will do a fit only will depend on your relationship with them as they would normally expect to source the product themselves, add a bit of profit to the part and then charge the labour. Bear in mind also they are required in law now to ensure that everything they fit has to be fit for purpose, and that includes something you just ask them to fit for you - if it fails later it is their problem.

If you are able to pick up a complete mirror from a motor factor, or off Ebay/Amazon whatever then I'd suggest that it will be a very straightforward job to do yourself with little in the way of complications, although from memory you may need a Torx bit set to undo the fasteners.

 

If it's any consolation we (the wife) smashed ours against a caravan "on a narrow hairpin" also in Switzerland.

I replaced it with a secondhand one from someone who was converting to medium length arms. It's a straightforward job if you decide to give it a go yourself.

Kev

 

I seem to keep having to mend that damned things, was at a dealers today he said he'd have to replace a mirror on 02 Ducato, as some gorilla had abused it and pulled the whole thing apart, including the motors, but all the real damage was a tiny bit of plastic, so a drill and a self tapper saved the day, he was well chuffed.

They make them to be easily damaged to save the door frame I think.

 

Our little bang -

And when your wing mirror is repaired fit a couple of these ….....

 

He moved out to avoid the car, but he would have missed it by miles, another bloody owner who's no idea how wide he/she is.

 

my mirror protectors have now survived several assaults on them by scaffolding poles in Italy, a couple of hedges and several Transits down our road, and a Transporter on the moors - that was enough to fold my drivers mirror closed and scraped and slightly cracked the protector. I didn't stop to see about the VW, but I was unscathed

 

Our commisserations,
We got wacked by a builders van on a friday afternoon in France (collision speed about 2x40mph) Not only did it smash the mirror but also sheared off the cast aluminum brackets that fix it to the door. My wife nearly had kittens when it happened as you can imagine.

The nearest dealer was in Toulouse and he was delighted to sell me a new retroviseur that he had in stock .
Unfortunately after I had fitted it and that wasnt too difficult on our model (2005 2.8JTD) I couldnt see anything from the drivers seat as it of course it was "pour le la chauffeur la gauche not a droit!! Sorry about my french but it does add flavour.

The moral is if you can manage as it is then wait until you get to UK as it will be more complicated whilst abroad ( unless you are VERY lucky)
I shudder at the cost of those plastic mirror protectors and I cant see how they add support if the brackets are broken but I suppose they are cheaper than a new mirror.
Ever since then I have added bright pvc or indeed aluminium tape to the back of the mirror to make them more visible to oncoming drivers.
Much cheaper, and so far no further incidents although we now have daytime running lights and a dashcam as well .

Mike & Ann

 

I don't think you can get the protectors for pre X250 vans, but could be wrong, just never seen any, I broke my ally arms on the Laiks, Right side, got them welded, can;t tell inside the rubber sleeves.

 

Plenty of them on Ebay from about £125, example below:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Fiat-Duca...ar+Make:Fiat|Model:Ducato|Cars+Year:2010&hash=item51d8b82866:g:NcQAAOSwWnFWBUMW

They're easy enough to change yourself but I expect any independent garage would fit it for you.
Make sure you get the heated glass one with electric adjustment.
You probably won't be able to get one with the aerial module in but you can swap the one in your damaged mirror to the new one if it's intact. The aerial is useless anyway so why not fit a separate aerial instead?

 

Too new, it's a 2.8 van.

 

Mirror Protectors

Fairly sure that you can, just cant afford them , being a poor pensioner
The builder van demolished the glass and mechanism as well snapping the casting , slightly dented the door as well
Mike & Ann

 

I hope this is not impolite to just come in with an anecdote, but I think the OP has had most answers.

I do worry about our mirrors, which being on an 'A' Class are not standard Fiat so no protectors available AFAIK.

We had a lucky escape when setting off from a friends house in Kent to catch the ferry to Santander. Driving down a narrowish lane we were 'clouted' by a white van, driver of which we could see was talking to his passenger.

Well the 'clout' always sounds bad, but fortunately in this case, although the housing moved on the bracket, nothing broke and all we suffered was his paint on the housing.

Point of the story is what would one have done if mirror had broken - called Recovery?, missed ferry? pressed on? (No interior mirror). It is a situation which has flashed through my memory a few times.

I wonder if we should carry a spare housing and mirror, since ours are mounted on a bracket which is not integral with the mirror, and the housing is not LH/RH handed. If so, how to source it cheaper than Niesmann, who obviously did not make them, but would mark-up on supply.

Geoff

 

Maybe post a picture of one close up Geoff, it may be they are not jsut for Niesmann.

 

Hi Geoff
We (OK, I) damaged a mirror a few years ago on the Arto when in France. Fortunately I had an auxiliary mirror higher up which I managed to re-position to cover the passenger side for the rest of the trip.
I priced a replacement at Travelworld (about £180 ISTR) and they sent me what they said was the correct one - which of course wasn't - it was the same as yours - mine was the later type. I sent it back when they told me that it would cost double the price to replace the later pattern and in any event they were out of stock. That being the case (and because the only damage was to the glass) I shopped around. I found several coach specialists who had a complete mirror in stock for half the price Travelworld wanted but better still, a search through the Hella catalogue revealed not only the complete mirror (which wasn't a Hella mirror) but also a replacement glass for about £12. I phoned them up and they delivered a new glass the following day to their local stockist - result.

Having suffered a couple of mirror "incidents" on narrow French roads (not my fault Monsieur Gendarme honest) I decided to make up a spare. All it is is a cheap truck mirror fixed onto an arm with a (very substantial) sucker that will adhere to any flat surface so covers most eventualities. It has a safety line to catch the mirror just in case the sucker fails and seems to do the job in that since I've carried it I haven't had to use it. 0

The really annoying thing is that when these incidents happen you can see them coming and there's nothing you can do about it. All it needs is someone in a truck or M/H that's slightly over the centre of the road and you're stuffed. The last incident I had was caused by a UK registered Discovery driving at about 50 mph slightly over the centreline who didn't move across when he saw me coming (assuming he did see me of course). Nothing I could do short of driving into the ditch.

 

The really annoying thing is that when these incidents happen you can see them coming and there's nothing you can do about it. All it needs is someone in a truck or M/H that's slightly over the centre of the road and you're stuffed. The last incident I had was caused by a UK registered Discovery driving at about 50 mph slightly over the centreline who didn't move across when he saw me coming (assuming he did see me of course). Nothing I could do short of driving into the ditch.

That happened to my missus when she was driving - this time it was a coach on a narrow road and he was over the white line. She tried to avoid as much as possible but with a roadside bank there wasn't much she could do to avoid and then BANG as our mirror went when the coach hit it. Luckily the glass hadn't broken although the housing had so I managed to pop the mirror back in and use some tape and it was OK until I got a replacement unit. We had no time to get the coach company name or reg as he didn't stop so the cost was down to us.