zozoramelu

Hey guys, I havent found any thread here (or elsewhere) about adding power folding mirrors feature to your first gen 2015 Lexus NX 200t.
I thought it to be a good idea for someone as crazy as I am to jump into such a task.
Warning: If you're not a handy guy, do not start this, it will save you lots of frustration and you may damage your mirrors for good...
Well, first of all, your car has to have the power folding controller installed. Apparently, the controller can do power folding with the proper switch, I will get into that later:

Obviously, you have to remove the interior driver door panel. I am not going to get into that now.
You will notice the speaker is removed. Yes, while unscrewing the exterior mirror, one damn nut fell into the door.
The next thing you need is the power folding motors. I bought mine from AliExpress really cheap here: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005...7c081802AYdiKw
The guy sent them to me already damaged, the little clips on the side holding the 2 plastic casings were broken, the packing was not done properly so I asked for a $20 discount. He accepted. Nothing that cannot be fixed with a little superglue. But the motors were working.



I bought the switch with power fold module on eBay (about $ 90 canadian). You don't need the whole switch, just the part that has the power fold buttons.


The switch can be easily installed, there are clips that you release and all the module slips off...

Now, the biggest challenge for this task is chopping the mirror frame in such way that the motor sinks as close as possible to the mirror base. You will never be able to sink the motor to the same level as in the OEM mirrors, but there is a solution. Keep reading...
Dismount the mirror from the door and start removing all the covers. Be careful, they break easy. I didn't break mine, but I was very close to...
You absolutely need prying tools, and not the cheap ones. I am lucky that my kit has 2 metal ones, they were very handy.
When you remove everything from the frame, mark all the wires and cut them all. There is no way around that, maybe remove the little clips from the plug on the mirror controller side. For me, it was easier to cut them. I will solder them back when I'm done.
They need to be cut because you need to pass them through the hole in the middle of the motor.
Here is the frame before starting chopping it off and then on with chopping:

Then with wires cut and started the chopping off:



If you worry that the motor not sinked completely into the bottom of the mirror won't fit inside the covers, don't. It does:



Make sure you have cutting tools like a dremel with a kit of bits. Without that, this task is impossible. The material from which the base is made is not ordinary plastic...
Cut bit by bit, measuring 10 times before, otherwise you'll cut the frame in half.

Finally, after the chopping, some attempts to fit the motor inside. You have to use plastic shims, zip ties and make sure the motor is as much as possible aligned (the middle hole in the motor) with the base, othewise the motor will not attach properly and the power folding will not work. The force that moves the mirror when the motor is not properly attached can create overloads and burn the electronics inside. Or, it will jam half way.
At first, I was worried about the motor having too long of a movement when not installed...
But there are electronics inside that will stop the folding when it hits the end of the rotation in the channel, there is a plastic stopper built into the mirror frame, check the pics...


Getting closer to the final position of the motor:





In order to make it work, you will have to shave off all the different levels of plastic into the mirror base, those are useful for manual folding only:



The mirror frame base needs to be chopped off as well (hole) in such way that there is nothing hindering the motor movement. I used the tool below:






When I was satisfied with the position of the motor, I glued it to the mirror frame:






Just because the motor base does not reach the mirror base, you'll have to find a way to attach it securely to the mirror base with some spacers. Any extra movement (other than folding/unfolding) will make the mirror not reach the end position after folding/unfolding or fold/unfold too far.
After lots of trials & errors (3h), I came up with the idea of cutting 3 pieces (1.4 cm each) to be used as spacers from this:



Those pieces are critical for proper attaching the motor to the base. I ended up gluing them to the aluminum motor base aligning to the screws holes . The picture below was taken while the glue was curing:






The little white pieces in the channel are for friction, can't use anything but plastic. They are also used to raise a bit the mirror so it doesn't contact the base (like in manual folding). You need to grease the white plastic so the mirror glides properly in the base channel.



Mounted back in place. Mirror is folding perfectly. I just need to install the power folding switch now and re-do all the wiring.






There you go, for the passenger mirror, same procedure.