Take that you have a 2010? Neat!

 

Folding side mirrors are needed in Asia and Europe when real estate is small. Parking is horrendous. We are so luck to have large parking lots. In Asia, they can be programmed to clip in as soon as you shut down the car, mostly for the luxury cars.

 

Nope, just a plain old 2007 RX350. But only till the new IS-F comes out.

 

Australia has quite large real estate in every city and large parking lots as well, but our cars all come from Japan and this is pretty much stock on every RX that came here. Mine is a 2003 (RX330); MY04 for the US guys; and this was part of the stock equipment.

Here is a video that I made a while back for another thread on the operation of said button and folding mirrors (excuse the long finger nails in the clip)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYBE6...LDRXk0iQZ_ZoRH

I thought my passenger mirror (driver's side for US drivers) was dead as well as it would not move. I went to the glass and pressed it in at the sides and this seems to have resolved the issue. I can only think that it got "stuck" somehow and doing this minor adjustment resolved the problem for me. Might be worth something to try before replacing the whole motor.

 

What I do want to get though is this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qllvqXJZ7yE

It would make it safer when exiting the car. So I can exit while the mirrors are in their normal position, especially when parked on a street. Then using the remote, lock the car and have them automatically close.

 

The Lexus Dealership here in Pittsburgh (Lexus of North Hills) when I used to use them for service really left a lot to be desired. I had to actually go into the Toyota system and download this TSB to convince them to fix my drivers side mirror. They did it, but it was like pulling teeth.

 

Had both mine replaced under warranty for faulty actuator.

 

Sorry to revive an old thread , but i have a similar problem on my rx330 '04 . My driver side mirror isn't working , there is a motor sound coming , but nothing happens. Pls help

 

Had my passenger side mirror replaced under warranty years ago, again it stopped working, however it doesn't work in the extreme heat. In temps below 90, it works OK. Plead insanity.

 

Someone?
I hear the motor sound from the mirror when trying to adjust it or put the car in reverse , but it's looks like it's stuck and doesn't move at all.

 

With the vehicle off, gently press each corner of the mirror one at a time in order for it to move a few clicks. Start with the corner which seems to stick out the furthest. After you do this with each corner you will want to go back and do the same thing but in a manner to help center the mirror.

Now, go in and try to move the mirror with the controls. If this has allowed you to now have control over the mirror you will want to use the controls to move the mirror to the furthest control point in one corner. Press and hold the control full left (or right) and then down (or up) of your choice. Let it keep trying to move the mirror in those directions a few extra seconds. Next, physically make sure the mirror is fully in that location -- be gentle. All these parts are plastic inside.

With your mirror and controls firmly in one corner you can hopefully adjust it to a position for your driving needs.

If after trying to move the mirror you do not gain control then you have a problem inside with a possible broken part.

 

I realize this thread is pretty old, but since this seems to be a common problem I thought I'd add my comments.

First, "manually adjusting" the mirror is not a big thing. The actuator uses two very, very small 12 VDC motors, one for vertical movement, the other for horizontal movement. The motor drives a worm gear in one of two directions; the polarity of the voltage is reversed for the "other" direction. These appear to be nylon gears, and I didn't see any appreciable wear. The up-down, or side-to-side movement of the mirror is accomplished by a tiered, round surface rotated by the motor/gear-pair pushing or pulling the actuator for the direction. This is why manually adjusting the mirror may result in its being "maxed-out" in one direction; just push the mirror in the other direction to restore movement (if the motor will provide it). According to Techstream there are any number of components involved in moving the mirror, any of which can fail, but my bet is on those itsy-bitsy under-sized motors.

Yes, I did take the actuator apart, actually pretty easy, once you get past the connectors. The problem seems to be perhaps twofold: 1) as noted, these are tiny, tiny motors, incapable of generating any appreciable torque, and even the grease used for the gears and moving parts is very light, offering minimal "feedback friction," as I'm terming it, meaning "resistance to the part(s) moving associated with the grease; and 2) the method of applying voltage to these two motors isn't even as sophisticated as a "connector." Instead, there are two cover-plates, one gray, the other black, and they're easily removed, revealing that the connection to the motor is a simple "touching" of a connector in the gray/black cover-plate to the motor leads. I'm sure the theory is that any power-loss-via-connection is minimal (I-squared,R and all that), but still, it's a terribly sloppy way of interconnecting the motors.

Both of my mirrors are misbehaving, and I have disassembled one of them in an effort to see if cleaning it and greasing it will fix things, but I have my reservations, especially in light of the warranty replacement of the mirrors. So, I'm looking for the tiny motors to see if they're available. The attached PDF from JBL-1985 is spot on, and came from the repair manual. Simply pry up under the mirror (I use one of those butter/mayonnaise spreader dull knives for removing body panels,etc, and it worked well here too), and the bottom pops free.

Incidentally, while the one connector states that you have to press down on the tab to release it, the other (ECM connector) is a bit of a puzzle since there seems to be no tab anywhere. It is, in fact, just a friction fit, though it's the devil to get apart without a pair of pliers.

If I can find just the motors (I didn't notice any markings on them), I'll post that up here. If not, then I'll investigate the actuators, price, etc, and post that as well. Once you get that mirror glass out of the way everything is pretty well exposed. Separating the actuator into its two halves isn't too bad, but may destroy the two tabs holding it together. Either a dab of super-glue, or nothing at all, relying on the three screws to hold it together will work just fine. There was no dust/dirt inside of the actuator, so my suspicion is that the motors simply tire out. In the one I put back together, a drop of sewing machine oil at each end of the motor shaft in its plastic housing may help, but who knows?

Cheers,

 

My 04 mirrors would go up and down but not left and right. I had the actuators replaced. The Lexus dealer wanted $1300, my local guy did it with Lexus parts from the same dealer for $500.