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Model 3 side mirrors convex or split?
- Thread starter dspwhite
- Start date
Your blind spots have never been fully covered even with a blind spot monitor. Never ever forget that shoulder check. As fir the question I think they were slightly convex from my test drive and it relies on you checking the screen for a proper backup of the shoulder check.
With a convex enough wing mirror, and setting them properly, the blind spots are indeed covered. You need to set them so that you can barely see the side of the car.
It's pretty easy to check if your blind spot is covered. On a clear, wide, side road, drive very very slowly past a parked car (leaving a good gap between it, preferably more than a lane's worth), and as you're looking at the wing mirror, see if the parked car is visible at all times either in your peripheral vision or in the side mirror. If there's any overlap (preferably a good chunk of overlap), where you see the car in the mirror simultaneously with seeing it also in your peripheral vision, that means your blind spot is covered. Preferably you should just about see the side of your car in the wing mirror too.
As a result, you'll turn out to be a safer driver than with the old positioning and flat or slightly convex wing mirrors, since taking your eyes off the road ahead, even for a moment, is less than ideal.
It's pretty easy to check if your blind spot is covered. On a clear, wide, side road, drive very very slowly past a parked car (leaving a good gap between it, preferably more than a lane's worth), and as you're looking at the wing mirror, see if the parked car is visible at all times either in your peripheral vision or in the side mirror. If there's any overlap (preferably a good chunk of overlap), where you see the car in the mirror simultaneously with seeing it also in your peripheral vision, that means your blind spot is covered. Preferably you should just about see the side of your car in the wing mirror too.
As a result, you'll turn out to be a safer driver than with the old positioning and flat or slightly convex wing mirrors, since taking your eyes off the road ahead, even for a moment, is less than ideal.
You can't view those cameras. You get a representation of what AP sees on the screen and if it's unsafe to change lanes you'll get a red line warning you not to try, but it's not a substitute for looking, just an extra warning.
I just installed Suma Performance mirrors. Like many others, I couldn’t move the OEM side mirrors out far enough to “properly “ get rid of the blindspots. My wife didn’t like the little blindspot mirror stick-on i was using, though I previously was getting by with that.
The Suma after market mirrors fixed things and also made my mirrors visible at night again since I was additionally having problems seeing anything through my tint when the auto dimming was kicking in.
The mirrors just barely cover everything for me now. I still wish I could angle my mirrors out a little more. Regardless, these are 100 times better than the stock mirrors and a quicker fix than hunting for UK mirrors on eBay (which had been my original plan before these after market ones came out).
The one thing I’d caution people about would be that things look a little further back with these mirrors than what you’d be used to. When changing lanes recently, the audible blind spot warning kicked in, so I must have been a little closer to the oncoming car than I was thinking. It’ll probably take a day or two to get used to the new view.
The Suma after market mirrors fixed things and also made my mirrors visible at night again since I was additionally having problems seeing anything through my tint when the auto dimming was kicking in.
The mirrors just barely cover everything for me now. I still wish I could angle my mirrors out a little more. Regardless, these are 100 times better than the stock mirrors and a quicker fix than hunting for UK mirrors on eBay (which had been my original plan before these after market ones came out).
The one thing I’d caution people about would be that things look a little further back with these mirrors than what you’d be used to. When changing lanes recently, the audible blind spot warning kicked in, so I must have been a little closer to the oncoming car than I was thinking. It’ll probably take a day or two to get used to the new view.
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Presumably these mirrors stick on top of the existing mirrors and you lose the ability to defrost your mirrors?
That still dosnt work as good as a shoulder check though. The convex mirror is just to small to be noticed quickly iv done both things being a biker too for over 10 years.
My xtrail blind spot monitor is good though but only as good as the final check done to see if the thing in the spot has gone.
The Suma mirrors are complete replacements. You pop off the OEM ones and put these in. Defrost wires are present. You can get ones with a blinker light, but that requires more wiring during installation. You only loose auto dimming, but I didn’t want that anyway due to my window tint. There is a version with a blue tint that reduces glare but I didn’t want that either.
Yep I intended to buy those!
Do you mean the view in them is too small? Not all convex mirrors are equal. For example, the SUMA ones that ftlum was talking about have a higher convex angle than most standard convex mirrors. Or are you saying this would be even worse since the view would be even smaller for distant cars?
Have a look at this comparison: https://i.imgur.com/X8vXG5P.png
Well let's just said I had some convex mirrors for my quasqui thiy were about an inch or so in diameter. I couldn't see anything in them I ended up just using them on my computer monitor. My eyes arnt the best and I couldn't see anything. I'm legal but nothing about my eyes is good. So a shoulder chrk is my basic minimum to feel safe.
Wow, really? You mean what's shown in the video - we can't have that in the UK? Why ever not? Sounds like a great safety feature.
Well, when you get your Model 3 you will find you can do exactly that. They all have access to the rear camera whilst driving. Gives a good view of the tow bar too if you have one. Legal or not it's a great supplement to the rearward view mirrors.
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