Wide-angle mirrors

As far as I know, all BMWs sold in Germany come with wide-angle mirrors, whether they are heated, self-dimming or plain, tinted or clear. US market cars, courtesy of NHTSA, come with flat mirrors on the driver’s door, convex mirrors on the passenger’s door, with warnings for morons on the latter. This is true whether they are self-dimming or not. I think all US BMWs have heated mirrors, but I may be wrong on that.

While wide-angle mirrors are convex, the convex mirrors fitted to US cars are NOT wide-angle in the same way as the German market ones are. The German for “wide angle mirrors” is “Weitwinkelspiegelglas”, following the German liking for combining adjectives and nouns into potrmaneau words. I don’t know what any of the part numbers are or where they can be ordered from for delivery to the US. I have bought (or leased) all my recent BMWs for European delivery and have bought my mirrors from either the Niederlassung (factory owned dealer) at Frankfurter Ring 35 in Munich or the dealer in Landshut, about 80 km to the North. As I’m sure everyone knows, they are dead easy to fit.

As you can see in the photos, the wide-angle mirrors have the outermost 20% (about) angled outward and slightly more convex than the rest. This provides a very effective view into neighboring lanes and virtually eliminates blind spots.

I’m sure a lot of people know all this and I’m preaching to the choir, but I hope it may help a few people. I’ve had these mirrors on all my cars since the early 70s, when they could be bought in the US for Mercedes. I cannot imagine why they aren’t allowed here….. I think they should be compulsory on all cars. If I have to drive a car without them, I feel paranoid and spend my time looking behind me.

I’m posting a few photos for clarification purposes. The mirror with the black rim round it is from an E 60 550 and the wiring on the back shows that it is heated and self-dimming. Another one is shown on my present 335 and the back of an earlier one shows the heater terminals. When I bought the pair that are on my current car, the model had just been face-lifted and the only cars that used wide-angle mirrors in the new shape were those destined for China! Nevertheless, the dealer in Landshut ordered them at about lunchtime and they were in by 8:30 the next morning!

Slightly off topic, a BMW option that is often bad-mouthed, usually by people who have never given it a chance, is the Active Steering. I’ve had it ever since it became available and in fact refused to get a diesel 335, which I wanted, because active steering wasn’t available on it. The first couple of times one drives a car so fitted, it’s too easy to overdo your steering in tight, suburban corners, but after a few trips, a car without really feels clumsy, as if one has to twist one’s arms into a plait!