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This is a pretty straight forward mod. You must be comfortable with wiring and electronics.
I will first start with I don't have memory seats, or tilt on reverse. It appears you'll need a different mirror switch that operates the memory. I also have an 2006 and it's possible 2009 switch may also be different. If you guys have part numbers, that would be helpful, but for now this should work for 06-08 without memory and maybe a YMMV for people with memory and for 09+.
Tools you'll need
-Ratchet and extension
-10mm stock
-Needle nose pliers (optional)
-Philips and flat head screwdrivers
-Small flat heads/pin removal tool.
-Electrical Tape
-Silicone
-Dremel
-Plastic trim removal tools (optional)
Things you'll need
-IS250 mirrors (likely off your car)
-Power folding motor: I bought the driver and passenger side mirrors from the UK off of eBay (searched IS220D wing mirror, or IS250 wing mirror from International Sellers). I was lucky and got a really good deal for both. Alternatively, you can also get the motor from the LS460 or any Lexus that had these features. Cheapest I found was150 each on eBay for just the motor. I was toying with the idea that maybe we can just install LS460 mirrors, but the OEM ones are quite expensive and the aftermarket ones have different bases and the OEM base won't fit on those I believe.
-Folding Mirror Switch: Bought off eBay with PN: 84872-52040
-Auto Folding module (optional): Bought off eBay searching for "Universal Intelligent Car Auto Side Rear View Mirror Fold Closer System Modules
Next, if you bought 2IS mirrors from Asia or any LHD country that has power folding mirrors, all you have to do is take the mirror, install it, and plug it in. Replace your switch with the power folding switch, and wire up the auto folding module like in this thread and you're done. Ahmed24 is very helpful and the instructions are on his blog. https://www.clublexus.com/forums/is-...-6-49-gbp.html
If however you were like me and bought mirrors from the UK or any RHD country, you will need to take the mirrors apart, remove the motor and place the motor into your own mirrors as detailed below.
I will not go over how to remove the door panel and the mirrors from your car. There is an extensive DIY here. I also added the JDM covers while I did this. https://www.clublexus.com/forums/is-...k-warning.html
Basic steps:
1) Remove cap by door handle and unscrew philips screw behind that cap
2) Remove window switch/trim using trim removal tool or pry up with hands. Remove 10mm bolt/screw behind.
3) Pull up door panel from bottom rear and lift up.
4) Remove plastic covering near the front and undo 3, 10mm bolts holding the mirror in place.
5) Unplug and pull mirror out.
6) Repeat for other side.
Before you take the mirrors apart. The power folding switch is not the same as the current switch in the 2IS. It will not be a direct replacement, and there are no screw to hold it in place like the original switch. What I had to do, and others have done is dremel the slot so that it is bigger so that the switch fits. You have to be careful since there is little room for error. I ended up not making the switch flush because I was messing up the wood trim. Probably best to widen it towards the L/R switch side. Once I was happy with the fitment, I placed a bunch of silicone to hold the switch in place. You can use whatever you want to hold it in place. Not the best looking, but it works.
Now that your mirrors are out. Time to take them apart. I suggest you start with the power folding ones because if you mess something up, all you really need is the motor. IS220D mirrors are not the same as the IS250 mirrors as the covers are different and appear to be bigger. The motor should work just fine though.
1) First you will need to take the apart the harness from the plug. There are two "clips" that hold each side of the harness in the plug as shown below. I found this very difficult to do. I did the inside clip first, then stuck a small flat head through the outside hole to push down the clip and yanked it out.
Once successful, you'll end up with a blank plug like so, and you can now take apart the mirror.
2) Remove the rubber piece completely
3) Beneath the rubber piece there are three screws (red arrows) that hold the base to the folding spring, in this case, folding motor. Now you can remove the base completely from the mirror. The other 3 screws hold the outside plastic covering to the metal base.
4) Pull the glass off the mirror motor. You want to pull from the bottom firmly upwards. What you're trying to do is dislodge the clips (green arrows) from the mirror motor. Then you keep moving the glass up to release the hooks (red arrow) and you're able to take the glass off.
5) Now the glass is off, remove the wires (green arrows) for the heating element in the glass. I used needle nose pliers to get them off. And the 4 screws (red arrows) to take apart the cover.
6) This is where I got lazy and didn't document as well. With the cover apart, remove the motor / spring from the mounting bracket. There should be four screws for this. One of them is hidden deeper (third photo)
7) Now, you should be able to pull the motor / spring out. There should be two wires from the motor. You need to unpin these two wires from the harness. DO NOT cut them if you don't know how to unpin unless you plan on cutting every wire and reattaching them later. Remember their position as these pins will go onto your old harness to operate the motor. To unpin, you need to lift up the orange clip with a tiny flat head screw driver, or an unpin tool, then push the tool into the bigger of the two holes at the front of the harness plug to disengage the pin, and pull out the wire with the pin. If you need help with this step, I suggest watching a youtube video as I'm not the best at explaining this. Once that's done. Pull the entire harness to the other side of the motor and now you're able to remove the motor from the mounting bracket.
8) Now that you're done, do the exact same thing with your mirror. Ie if you just did the passenger side mirror, take apart your passenger side mirror. The only difference this time is there will be a spring instead of a motor, and you don't have to unpin any wires.
9) Remove the spring from the mounting bracket and place your folding motor into that space, put all the wires through the center of the folding motor and reinstall everything backwards with the exception of putting the harness back into the plug.
10) Now with the two wires that you unpinned earlier for the power folding motor, lift up the orange tab and insert those two wires in the same position as before. Blue should be on bottom with the red, and green should be on top. In actuality, they are just the signal for fold and unfold, so probably doesn't matter as much as it will just dictate which way the switch works.
11) Re-attach the mirror. Test out using the power folding mirror switch. The mirror should now fold when you push down the button, and unfold when you push it again.
If you are happy with just operating the mirror manually, then you're done, and it's a wrap.
Sorry I didn't document this, but the link above should be sufficient. Please use that as your main source as this is just a basic rundown.
There should be 9 wires on the module. 2 wires going from the module to the mirror motor side (ie fold and unfold), 2 wires going from the module to the motor mirror switch (ie switch on and switch off), ACC, +12V on all the time, ground, Lock and unlock.
Please do not go by color even though I list them here. The module you buy may not have the same wire colors. Unless if it does, then that's fine.
+12V (red with fuse from module), I attached to the thick blue wire on the window control switch for me
Mirror motor wires that controls the power folding motor is green and red on the mirror switch for me. These two wires will be cut completely giving you 4 ends. Switch off, Switch on goes to the switch side (gray from module to green, white from module to red), Fold mirror, unfold mirror goes to the mirror motor side (brown from module to red, orange from module to green) .
ACC (yellow from module) I connected to the orange, next to the green and red mirror switch wires, on the mirror control switch
Ground (black on module) is always white with black stripe, on the mirror control switch.
Finally the unlock and lock. There should be a plug to the far end of the door.
From another member.
"For 06-08 LHD, the purple wire is the unlock signal, green is the lock signal. On my setup, I only connected the #7 Blue wire (lock+ from the module) to the Green wire (car harness), and left #6 unused. This is what they called smart mode. The mirror will fold when the door is locked, but will only unfold when ACC or Engine is on." - Which is how I wired mine. You can certainly wire the unlock so that when you unlock the door, the mirrors unfold.
Just confirmed, all UK 220D and 250 have power folding and heated side mirrors, thanks trujtru for this write up! Parts have been ordered! It's one of the things that always bothered me about this car, not having that feature at all in this country. I hope everything works.
Just confirmed, all UK 220D and 250 have power folding and heated side mirrors, thanks trujtru for this write up! Parts have been ordered! It's one of the things that always bothered me about this car, not having that feature at all in this country. I hope everything works.
Yeah. All should have power folding standard. Guess they use it more because of tighter roads/parking spaces. Was going to say best way is to have the seller take a closer picture of the harness and there should have two extra wires for the folding motor. That will 100% confirm it. Sucks it's not just a direct swap due to the viewing angles of the RHD to the LHD. Good luck with the project!
Yeah. All should have power folding standard. Guess they use it more because of tighter roads/parking spaces. Was going to say best way is to have the seller take a closer picture of the harness and there should have two extra wires for the folding motor. That will 100% confirm it. Sucks it's not just a direct swap due to the viewing angles of the RHD to the LHD. Good luck with the project!
I have dimming, heated and auto tilting mirrors, but is it safe to say that I'll be wiring it up exactly the same, except to add for the 2 new additional wires on the existing plug I'll be reusing? I'd agree that I can't imagine that it would disable the other features.
The additional folding button on the new switch I ordered is just a direct interface to the new motors and that's the only difference between my current switch and this new one? The switch itself isn't a controller to the mirrors, there is a separate mirror control module of some sort for that stuff?
Wow. Luckily i've got these from factory on my JDM car.
I didn't even know that was a thing. I'm surprised because there was a p040 module I saw in Thailand that does the auto folding. And Ahmed24 wrote a whole DIY when his car already came with power folding mirrors, but not auto folding. I wonder what is the difference between the JDM car and the UK car?
Originally Posted by lockedlex
I have dimming, heated and auto tilting mirrors, but is it safe to say that I'll be wiring it up exactly the same, except to add for the 2 new additional wires on the existing plug I'll be reusing? I'd agree that I can't imagine that it would disable the other features.
The additional folding button on the new switch I ordered is just a direct interface to the new motors and that's the only difference between my current switch and this new one? The switch itself isn't a controller to the mirrors, there is a separate mirror control module of some sort for that stuff?
The two wires coming from the motor should go into your existing mirrors wiring harness the same way. Don't think there is much else to it.
When you remove your old switch and compare it to the new one, there are two additional pins on the new switch. Those pins correspond to the green and red wires that is already on the door harness, so it's plug and play. That red and green wires are the signal to the motor for fold and unfold. Whether or not there is anything between the motor and switch, I'm not 100% sure but from the diagrams I've seen, it does not appear so. The switch should activate the unfold and fold relay in the mirror motor, so I believe it directly interfaces with the motor.
Do all cars have mirror modules, or just cars with memory? Mirror module are attached to the door on each side correct? If so I don't have any mirror modules and they do not seem to be necessary. The first link I read about the power folding mirrors stated I needed to swap the harness and get mirror modules, which clearly isn't the case. If you look at the second link in the original post, the guy with the 3IS had memory and it seemed to work fine and I don't think he did anything extra. He just comments it's a complicated system.
With 212jdmis25 picture, I think the mirror module may give the option of turning on/off auto folding? It's similar to the parking assist system. Once you plug in the module, the option to turn on/ off parking assist appears in the satellite menu. So maybe with memory you won't need to install the additional module for auto folding?
Edit: Just went back and re-read the 3IS thread and the auto function might be disabled in the US? With memory, it seems the signal is routed through the body ECU and then sent to the mirror. However it shouldn't change how you wire it. Should still be the same.
Edit 2: Browsing the internet, looks like auto folding was available in the UK in 2010+ cars? So they may have disabled it on the US mirror module?
I have dimming, heated and auto tilting mirrors, but is it safe to say that I'll be wiring it up exactly the same, except to add for the 2 new additional wires on the existing plug I'll be reusing? I'd agree that I can't imagine that it would disable the other features.
The additional folding button on the new switch I ordered is just a direct interface to the new motors and that's the only difference between my current switch and this new one? The switch itself isn't a controller to the mirrors, there is a separate mirror control module of some sort for that stuff?
So you have memory seat option, correct? If that is the case, you have to source the switch from a car that also has memory seat option if you want to retain the mirror memory function. As far as I know, the mirror harness with memory seat option is different than the one without. The mirror switch is not interchangeable between the two because the harness plug is different. See attached photo, the switch with memory function has fewer pins than the regular one. I don't know what the exact parts number is for that switch. Could be 84872-48020. Maybe our European or RHD friends can confirm it?
Here are photos of the mirror harness with memory option with memory with memory
So you have memory seat option, correct? If that is the case, you have to source the switch from a car that also has memory seat option if you want to retain the mirror memory function. As far as I know, the mirror harness with memory seat option is different than the one without. The mirror switch is not interchangeable between the two because the harness plug is different. See attached photo, the switch with memory function has fewer pins than the regular one. I don't know what the exact parts number is for that switch. Could be 84872-48020. Maybe our European or RHD friends can confirm it?
Here are photos of the mirror harness with memory option with memory with memory
mirror switch with memory seat option
Thanks for the info. I don't see an issue with the harness if he has memory, unless he has only a single harness A like in the is250C. Harness B in the photo is the puddle light, heating element, and the folding motor. In the US cars we are missing the green and blue one for the folding motor. Harness A has all the mirror components like movement, dimming, which is also where I believe the auto-tilt on reverse lies. Plugging the folding motor pins in should be the same.
As for the switch, they appear different from the photo you posted as mine has 7 consecutive pins and the memory appears to be missing a center pin. Also looks like the 09+ switches are different. Would need the two wiring diagrams to sort this out.
Oh this is going to get interesting. Thanks everyone for your input so far. I did order the 84872-52040 mirror switch.
Trujtru, I recall you mentioning that the folding mirror wires are probably just activating a relay of some sort? If that's the case, and on a side note, could I just apply power to it to test it out and when applying power, for let's say a second, will that cause the mirror to fold/unfold automatically? The question then would be where is the folding motor relay? Part of the motor assembly, part of the switch or part of some controller?
Back on the topic, I'd really hate to lose my mirror memory settings, so if there is another switch that will allow it to be retained, that would be great. I can just return the 84872-52040 that I ordered.
Yes, I can confirm I have the puddle light, turn signal integrated into the mirror, heating element and dimming. In my mind, it seems like I'm just adding two more wires to an existing plug, everything else would stay the same hopefully?
I've attached some photos:
Current backside of mirror switch only has 5 pins:
However, the connector going to the mirror switch has 7 wires attached to it:
One other thought is if the "relay" for the folding motors isn't actually IN the mirror switch.. but say in controller module that Babygate mentioned... could I just run a single pole momentary switch to the folding mirror leads and activate it that way? I have 1 or 2 blank plates I could wire up a switch to (and even use a Lexus switch, like maybe the TPMS reset button)?
One other thought is if the "relay" for the folding motors isn't actually IN the mirror switch.. but say in controller module that Babygate mentioned... could I just run a single pole momentary switch to the folding mirror leads and activate it that way? I have 1 or 2 blank plates I could wire up a switch to (and even use a Lexus switch, like maybe the TPMS reset button)?
Oops looks like the switch is the relay? In the first thread in my original post, there is this diagram in that thread that shows the wires going to relays. I believe the button just changes where the +12V is directed to operate the fold and unfold. The motor should operate independently of the memory functions. I can see how the mirror module would play a role if the auto function was still there.
Also from the thread to wire in auto folding module: "Power folding mirror motors regardless of brand all work in similar way. They have two wires going to the motor. It folds and unfolds based on the polarity of the power supplied to it. The internal switch that folds the mirror basically flips the ACC +12v and ground around going to the 2 wires of the mirror motor. I initially did some testing and was able to operate the mirrors independently using +12v"
One other thought is if the "relay" for the folding motors isn't actually IN the mirror switch.. but say in controller module that Babygate mentioned... could I just run a single pole momentary switch to the folding mirror leads and activate it that way? I have 1 or 2 blank plates I could wire up a switch to (and even use a Lexus switch, like maybe the TPMS reset button)?
For 08+ with memory seat option, both the heated mirror and folding functions are controlled by the memory module. The folding is the less of your concern, you could just wire a switch to control the folding just like you said. The real issue is the mirror adjustment. The actual mirror adjustment switch that has the memory option is not a mechanical momentary switch, it is resistor based signal switch that sends the command to the memory module to preform the actual adjustment. To make thing more complicated, Lexus made some minor changes to the way the mirror is controlled for model with memory option, but enough to make 08+ switch incompatible with 06-07 switch.
If you are willing to add an additional switch and keep the existing mirror switch, then thing gets a lot easier, Just wire a switch to the folding mirror leads and done with it. Once you have the auto folding module wired, you probably won't need to manually fold/unfold the mirror that often anyway.