Mirror Evaluation [long]

["Paul F. Kunz" <Paul.Kunz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

   After the outside mirror discussion on this digest late last
winter, George Dalby <grd19@domain.elided> offered to send me a pair of his
company's mirrors if I were to use them for a month and send him an
evaluation.   I've done so and thought the readers here might like to
read it as well.

   By the way, his company doesn't produce mirrors for all models of
BMWs, but HMS stocks the ones that are available.   George had to
custom make a pair for my car.


- ---

	Evaluation of MultiVex MasterView Mirrors

	By Paul F. Kunz <Paul_Kunz@domain.elided>


   In the last year, I have had three different outside mirrors on the
driver's side and two different outside mirrors on the passenger side
of my '88 735i.  This is a report on my likes and dislikes of these
different mirrors.

   The three combinations I've had in the last year are the
following...

- - (1) OEM stock.  This consists of a flat mirror on the driver's side
and a convex mirror, with DoT enforced labeling, on the passenger
side.

- - (2) BMW wide angle.  This consists of a BMW wide angle driver's
mirror sold in Europe as an accessory for older cars, but stock in
Europe on newer cars.  In this combination, I had the U.S. stock
passenger side mirror.

- - (3) MultiVex mirrors.  This combination had MultiVex mirrors pasted
on top of OEM mirrors on both outside mirrors.

   Starting with combination (1), I should note that I adjusted my OEM
mirrors such that they covered as best as possible the "blind spots".
I believe that most people adjust their outside mirrors incorrectly in
that they are adjusted so they can look down the road from them.  In
my case I feel that duplicates what I can already see with the inside
mirror.  So I've always adjusted my outside mirrors so that they cover
what I can not see from my inside mirror nor my perpherial vision. I
believe this is the correct use of outside mirrors and have seen
articles in journals that support this view.  With this mirror
adjustment, I never turn my head to look for traffic in adjecent
lanes.  I use and trust my mirrors instead.  I believe that turning
your head takes too much time away from paying attention to the
traffic in front of you.


   One side benefit of such adjustment, is one doesn't have problem of
headlight glare by vehicles passing on the left.  Or conversely, if
one is experience headlight glare from the driver's mirror, then I
would say the mirrors are not adjusted properly.

   My experience with configuration (1) is 10-15 years old.  I was
quite satisfied with it except in one case.  In my daily commute to
work I enter a freeway that is curving to left.  Thus, my mirror were
adequately adjusted for a straight line situation, this left turning
entrance to a freeway left me a bit of a blind spot.

   I experienced configuration (2) by purchasing a BMW OEM wide angle
mirror from a BMW dealer in Geneva, Switzerland during a business trip
there.  It was a heated mirror, like the US OEM mirror.  Because of
the extra cost of heated mirrors, I only bought a driver's
side. mirror.  Why I brothered with heated mirrors since I live in
Northern California where you don't need them, I don't know.

   These mirrors are convex to a fixed degree over 80% of their
surface.  The degree of convexness is about, but maybe less, than the
US OEM passenager side mirror.  The outside 20% of the surface is much
more convex and there is a clearly visible line on the glass surface
separating these two parts.  This mirror has become standard equipment
on BMWs delivered in Germany and during the time period of evaluation,
I've rented BMWs on two occasions and both had this type of mirror.
Also during this period, I've rented a Citroen in France with similar
mirror; the only difference being the vertical line replaced by a
series of small circles.

   I was quite happy with this driver's outside mirror replacement
from the start.  I only had trouble doing the actual replacement.  I
followed the instructions, written in six or so languages, but the OEM
mirror wouldn't come out.  So I went to a dealer, who also had
trouble.  Finally, he said he would have to force it at risk of
breaking it.  It came out without breakage.  The basic problem was
that the mirror on a '88 car had been there ten years and there is a
bit of adhesive on the back.

   I found the BMW wide angle mirrors a great improvement.  In
particular, in that on ramp situation with the highway curving to the
left I had greatly improve visibility via the outside mirror.
However, the 20% part of the mirror that was very convex was half
useless.  This is because with my original OEM mirror housing, half of
what I could see in the highly convex part was the mirror housing
itself.  I could fix that by adjusting the mirror more inward, but
then it would be wrong for the 80% part and increase headlight glare I
would get during night driving.  Nevertheless, using these BMW wide
angle outside mirror was a different improvement over US OEM mirrors.

   I experienced configuration (3) when MultiVex mirrors arrived in
the mail from the company for my evaluation.  I took off the BMW wide
angle mirror on the driver's side and replaced with the BMW OEM
mirror.  Then I pasted the MultiVex mirrors on both sides of the car
with the doubled sided tape supplied.

   My first impression was that I had to push the adjustment of both
mirrors further out than they were for the OEM mirrors.  The '88 735i
has memory position for the mirrors this required adjustment wasn't
because I moved the mirrors during the installation.  In fact, I had
to adjust them to their extreme outside range.  I wonder if for some
mirrors, one wouldn't be able to adjust them that far.  I had a GM
rental car during this period on a business trip, and I couldn't get
its mirrors adjusted out far enough to my liking.

   As the instructions that come with the mirrors clearly state, they
take some time getting used to them.  On my first drive with them, my
impression was: "wow, these are weird".  There just seemed to be so
much going on it them and my eyes couldn't focus well on what I saw.
But this impression went away after a few days.

   Second thing I noticed and found distrubing at first was the view
in the mirrors seemed slanted upward.  Well, that's going to be true
due to the continously changing convexness.  It took longer to get
used to this, maybe 2-3 weeks.  Now I don't notice it anymore.

   For the on ramp curving to the left, the Multivex mirrors covers
the situtation even better than the BMW wide angle mirrors.  I can
really enter the right lane with full confidence that a glance in the
driver's mirrors tells me it is safe.

   My daily commute takes me for about seven miles on a freeway with 4
lanes in each direction.  The Multivex mirrors covers the blind spots
on both adjacent lanes very well.  Both so do the US OEM mirrors when
the road is straight and the BMW wide angle mirrors for curved
portions of the road.  What only the Multivex mirrors have been able
to do for me is to see cars two lanes over that might be changing
lanes closer to my lane.

   I had an incident very recently, where only the Multivex mirrors
saved me from a near miss.  I was in the number 2 lane (second from
the left) and thinking about moving to the number 3 lane.  I had just
passed a car in the number 4 lane and I was thinking he might want to
also move to the number 3 lane because there was slower traffic ahead.
While still in the number 2 lane, I could see him start to move to
number 3 lane.  The OEM convex passenger side mirror would only have
shown him after he completed his move, while the Multivex mirrors
showed me him starting his move.

   So in summary, I'm very impressed with the Multivex MasterView
mirrors.  As a driver who prefers to adjust the outside mirrors
properly and to use them rather than turning my head, the Multivex
mirrors give me great confidence that what I can see in them is what
is there.

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End of bmw-digest V9 #416
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