bob m

When I bring my car into the NYC parking lot, there are times when I see that one of the side view mirrors are folded in (of course overcrowding in the lot is the culprit). When I get in the car, I hit the switch to unfold them and it makes a god awful sound. On that basis alone, I have told them not to manually fold the mirror. Question; does manually folding the mirror cause any damage to the mirror's mechanisms?

will822

I would think being motorized mirrors that manually folding them cannot be a good thing.

Q5 Bob

If the lot locks the cars, it might be easier on the mechanism to have the mirrors set to fold upon locking.

bob m

Aha, makes sense, but after thinking about it, its an indoor garage and they don't lock the cars.

snagitseven

I've seen a thread where a woman in a parking lot manually jammed a motorized mirror open on a poster's Audi trying to be helpful and broke the motor. Similar thing almost happened to me once when boarding a ferry and the attendent grabbed my mirror to close it. I stopped him in time. Best to tell the lot to leave them alone or lock the car.

riceboy22

Maybe fold the mirrors in yourself before handing over the keys?

And your side mirrors are probably the least of your worries with NYC parking attendants LOL.

Mrclopec

Temporarily manually folding the mirrors by hand does not hurt them. Just so long as you unfold it again before you or the car tries to fold/unfold it electronically. The mirrors are still designed to fold manually if they are ever hit. This being by driving forward and hitting a pole really close to the car this knocking the mirror back, or backing out of a parking space and hitting the mirror forward. This is designed to minimize structural damage to to mirror housing or the door frame. But if the mirror has been folded manually, it is generally unwise to attempt to unfold it electronically.

snagitseven

Problem is it would be easy to forget (or not notice someone had folded it in) to manually pull it back before starting the car.

bob m

Nah, folding the mirrors myself wouldn't work as I am in a long line of other cars and they move my car right away to another spot.
Yep, NYC lots are terrible, 15 years ago, they tore the front below the engine cover thingee on my 2000 A3 or was it the A4? But things have gotten better as I make very sure I "take care of" the manager and staff.

bob m

Ok, makes sense. Good info to know, as I was unfolding them electronically.

Thanks All.