2003 Suburban OEM Mirror Replacement: 'non-heated' replaced with 'heated'
April 27th, 2016, 3:42 PM
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2003 Suburban OEM Mirror Replacement: 'non-heated' replaced with 'heated'
Some time back, I had a bad experience with an eBay seller (autoandart / Auto and Art) that sold me a set of new mirrors for my Suburban. My model is an LS and the mirrors are only powered, with no other features, such as being heated, auto-dimming, puddle lamps or turn signals. I bought powered mirrors that based on their fitment guide, should have worked. But when I got them and took off my door panel, I discovered that the OEM mirrors had a 23" long wiring harness and two ten-pin plugs, one blue, one black. The replacement mirrors from autoandart had a 6" long wiring harness and only one black plug of a different style. Went back and forth with the seller, feeling that they in fact sent me the wrong mirrors, but they insisted they were the correct mirrors (impossible!) and was finally able to return them for a refund, but I had to pay the return shipping, which was about half of the original cost of the mirrors. eBay seller AutoAndArt screwed me, plain and simple.
Gave up on the whole project but recently decided to try again, ordering mirrors from a different eBay seller. (Car Parts Wholesale, Kool Vue Mirrors) Ah ha! These mirrors have a 23" long wiring harness with two plugs, just like OEM. These mirrors are 'heated', just like the original set I ordered from eBay, even though my Suburban didn't have that feature on the OEM's. Install went perfectly and the power-feature of the mirrors works like it is supposed to. The 'heated' feature of the mirror is turned on by using the rear defroster, but the weather now is too warm to check that out. I'm assuming that the replacement mirrors will not heat up, guessing that my Suburban doesn't have the proper wiring from the wiring harness to the mirror plugs, and I'm okay with that. The point of my post is to let everyone know that there are mirrors out there with the wrong wiring harness and plugs that some sellers will claim will fit and work properly. But you can't plug a mirror wiring harness 6" long into a plug outlet that's 23" away and you can't morph one mirror plug into two!
Also, I learned something that I didn't find when searching the forums and YouTube before starting the project... once you disconnect the wiring harness from the passenger door panel, it takes out remote access from the key FOB, takes out the power window from the drivers' side switch, interior lights and the power door locks when you put the transmission in drive. (If you use that feature.)
Gave up on the whole project but recently decided to try again, ordering mirrors from a different eBay seller. (Car Parts Wholesale, Kool Vue Mirrors) Ah ha! These mirrors have a 23" long wiring harness with two plugs, just like OEM. These mirrors are 'heated', just like the original set I ordered from eBay, even though my Suburban didn't have that feature on the OEM's. Install went perfectly and the power-feature of the mirrors works like it is supposed to. The 'heated' feature of the mirror is turned on by using the rear defroster, but the weather now is too warm to check that out. I'm assuming that the replacement mirrors will not heat up, guessing that my Suburban doesn't have the proper wiring from the wiring harness to the mirror plugs, and I'm okay with that. The point of my post is to let everyone know that there are mirrors out there with the wrong wiring harness and plugs that some sellers will claim will fit and work properly. But you can't plug a mirror wiring harness 6" long into a plug outlet that's 23" away and you can't morph one mirror plug into two!
Also, I learned something that I didn't find when searching the forums and YouTube before starting the project... once you disconnect the wiring harness from the passenger door panel, it takes out remote access from the key FOB, takes out the power window from the drivers' side switch, interior lights and the power door locks when you put the transmission in drive. (If you use that feature.)
