Well if @steveph has fitted it and its doing exactly what its supposed to do, then it'll just have to be door cards off to pick up the colours he is detailing.
Retrofit: Power fold mirror with fold on remote lock
- Thread starter steveph
- Start date
OK, here goes. It’s too dark to paint window frames now so I’ve been allowed back in 
@Rob – it’s worth persevering. It feels good to hear the click of locks followed by the whir of the mirrors and if I forget whether I’ve locked or not a glance over the shoulder confirms
But take a note from @StudleyGlass – I didn’t blow mine up with the mirror job, but a careless moment with my old meter on the camera job is another story….. All at your own risk as they say!
@DaveyB – just re-read your post and realise you have got the power fold mirrors already so a different setup to me. No need to change the mirrors
@travelvolts – sounds like that yellow/blue is driving a relay to switch between the blue/yellow and violet? That relay may well be in the door and for now I’ll describe this based on picking up feeds behind the door cards until I can check. I don’t recommend unfold on unlock so only actually confirmed the lock signal.
First some thoughts on different options then on using the unit that @Pauly and @Stampie66 are looking at which is inside the after-market controller I got and the way I would go first if I had power fold already and knew what I now know…
@Rob – it’s worth persevering. It feels good to hear the click of locks followed by the whir of the mirrors and if I forget whether I’ve locked or not a glance over the shoulder confirms
But take a note from @StudleyGlass – I didn’t blow mine up with the mirror job, but a careless moment with my old meter on the camera job is another story….. All at your own risk as they say!
@DaveyB – just re-read your post and realise you have got the power fold mirrors already so a different setup to me. No need to change the mirrors
@travelvolts – sounds like that yellow/blue is driving a relay to switch between the blue/yellow and violet? That relay may well be in the door and for now I’ll describe this based on picking up feeds behind the door cards until I can check. I don’t recommend unfold on unlock so only actually confirmed the lock signal.
First some thoughts on different options then on using the unit that @Pauly and @Stampie66 are looking at which is inside the after-market controller I got and the way I would go first if I had power fold already and knew what I now know…
If like me, you are upgrading from standard electric without power folding to power folding you need to buy the mirrors and a controller. I got the complete set from Travelin-Lite on eBay, minus the door switch I got from VW. I’ll give more on that later if any of you are in that situation – it looks like most already have the power fold with standard VW controller.
If you have the standard VW power fold setup then based on my experience I would expect an aftermarket controller like this to work. Yes, Travelin-Lite again! – only because their aftersales service was excellent and I haven’t researched others. If you want a step by step guide with much of the electrical work in the black box done this is probably the way to go. I would be interested to see the install guide if anyone goes this way and recommend you ask them for that first to see if the T5 instructions are valid for a T6 like they were for me.
Based on my later research after looking inside the black box I expect the core unit from China will do the job if you can cope with the English translation and are logical (and careful) at testing. It’s not a big outlay to try, and more about understanding how it works and getting a tidy installation than saving money. Most of this description will also be similar to an after-market controller….
If you have the standard VW power fold setup then based on my experience I would expect an aftermarket controller like this to work. Yes, Travelin-Lite again! – only because their aftersales service was excellent and I haven’t researched others. If you want a step by step guide with much of the electrical work in the black box done this is probably the way to go. I would be interested to see the install guide if anyone goes this way and recommend you ask them for that first to see if the T5 instructions are valid for a T6 like they were for me.
Based on my later research after looking inside the black box I expect the core unit from China will do the job if you can cope with the English translation and are logical (and careful) at testing. It’s not a big outlay to try, and more about understanding how it works and getting a tidy installation than saving money. Most of this description will also be similar to an after-market controller….
The space I used looks like it is there for additional modules.
Just behind the light switch there are two individual fuses and if you remove these you can unclip and pull forward the holders to piggy back onto a permanent live and a live on ignition. From memory Red was permanent and Red/Black 'ignition on' – best check!
On the topic of fuses the permanent live feeds the power for the fold/unfold circuits and on the aftermarket kit was protected by a 7.5A fuse. The 'ignition on' live signals to relays and had a 3A fuse.
From this location it is easy to route to the driver’s door where I picked up the lock signal from the Violet in the harness running toward the lock.
I didn’t hook into the unlock Blue/Yellow – plenty of scenarios where I want to unlock my van without crashing the mirror into the wall or the Transit parked so close next to me
When the door card is off I would trace these two back to verify the comment from @travelvolts – either they go through the flexi-tube from door to van, or not. If they do and you can get to them inside then you save on wiring runs to the door and make a tidier job
Mirror wiring next....
Just behind the light switch there are two individual fuses and if you remove these you can unclip and pull forward the holders to piggy back onto a permanent live and a live on ignition. From memory Red was permanent and Red/Black 'ignition on' – best check!
On the topic of fuses the permanent live feeds the power for the fold/unfold circuits and on the aftermarket kit was protected by a 7.5A fuse. The 'ignition on' live signals to relays and had a 3A fuse.
From this location it is easy to route to the driver’s door where I picked up the lock signal from the Violet in the harness running toward the lock.
I didn’t hook into the unlock Blue/Yellow – plenty of scenarios where I want to unlock my van without crashing the mirror into the wall or the Transit parked so close next to me
When the door card is off I would trace these two back to verify the comment from @travelvolts – either they go through the flexi-tube from door to van, or not. If they do and you can get to them inside then you save on wiring runs to the door and make a tidier job
Mirror wiring next....
Remember, I didn’t have power fold mirrors originally so no wiring in the harness for me. I connected the fold/unfold circuits from my after-market controller directly on the mirror side of the new connectors behind the door cards.
Red/Black – fold. Red/White – unfold. But please check!
The mirrors do not have limit switches at the end of their travel. They use reversible motors that ‘stall’ at the end of travel and the controller gives around a 5 second pulse to give enough travel time with a small amount of stall. I assume the OEM ones are the same as the after-market ones are a replacement for them as they get broken off...
@Pauly , this is where it comes to testing the theory For the controller you have I say that if you cut these fold/unfold cables then the cables coming from the van give the pulses to your controller and your controller then outputs to the cables going to the mirrors.
If you can find these inside the van it avoids routing cables back and forward through the flexi-tube to the door. And if you can route back to the OEM power fold controller you can pick up the passenger side too
Worst case is you would have to route your controller output to connect passenger side behind that door card and after you cut the cables there you would terminate the ones coming from the van as you already have the control pulse you need from driver’s side.
At least, that’s my theory – how does that sound @Pauly ?
@Stampie66 , I see you are not so far away. If you have the VW power fold mirrors, I’d be happy to help you have a look behind the door card and dash on my driveway to see what we find. I have some basic trim removal tools and some spare clips for the door card as you are likely to have a couple break. Don’t worry, I’m not a Pompey lad – only been here 8 years
Next my Plan B and some possible additions to this approach .....
Red/Black – fold. Red/White – unfold. But please check!
The mirrors do not have limit switches at the end of their travel. They use reversible motors that ‘stall’ at the end of travel and the controller gives around a 5 second pulse to give enough travel time with a small amount of stall. I assume the OEM ones are the same as the after-market ones are a replacement for them as they get broken off...
@Pauly , this is where it comes to testing the theory
For the controller you have I say that if you cut these fold/unfold cables then the cables coming from the van give the pulses to your controller and your controller then outputs to the cables going to the mirrors.If you can find these inside the van it avoids routing cables back and forward through the flexi-tube to the door. And if you can route back to the OEM power fold controller you can pick up the passenger side too
Worst case is you would have to route your controller output to connect passenger side behind that door card and after you cut the cables there you would terminate the ones coming from the van as you already have the control pulse you need from driver’s side.
At least, that’s my theory – how does that sound @Pauly ?
@Stampie66 , I see you are not so far away. If you have the VW power fold mirrors, I’d be happy to help you have a look behind the door card and dash on my driveway to see what we find. I have some basic trim removal tools and some spare clips for the door card as you are likely to have a couple break. Don’t worry, I’m not a Pompey lad – only been here 8 years
Next my Plan B and some possible additions to this approach .....
As my T5 after-market solution worked fine on my T6 and the T5 2010+ has the same mirrors and same lack of fold on lock, I am assuming it probably has the same or similar VW controller so the ‘cheapy’ controller that works on a T5 will work on the T6.
But I’ve always been told that assumption is a dangerous thing! If it doesn’t work that would have cost us (Pauly!) the cheap controller and left a few cut wires to re-join. I wouldn’t expect anything to get blown up testing this
My Plan B would be the aftermarket controller from Travelin-Lite or similar and see how/if that works. Note that I did have to make a simple mod to my Travelin-Lite controller to stop the mirror unfolding when I didn’t want it too – more on that later.
But going with my assumption that the controller Pauly has will work then one thing to check is that when you are driving in a dodgy neighbourhood and lock the doors while moving (say someone from Southampton visits Portsmouth ) you don’t want to lose sight of the hooligans behind you as the mirrors fold! The controller should disable the lock/fold feature with ‘ignition on’ but if not that just needs a relay on the lock feed to the controller to break circuit when ignition on. Let’s see how it works first.
Here’s how mine operates…..
But I’ve always been told that assumption is a dangerous thing! If it doesn’t work that would have cost us (Pauly!) the cheap controller and left a few cut wires to re-join. I wouldn’t expect anything to get blown up testing this
My Plan B would be the aftermarket controller from Travelin-Lite or similar and see how/if that works. Note that I did have to make a simple mod to my Travelin-Lite controller to stop the mirror unfolding when I didn’t want it too – more on that later.
But going with my assumption that the controller Pauly has will work then one thing to check is that when you are driving in a dodgy neighbourhood and lock the doors while moving (say someone from Southampton visits Portsmouth
) you don’t want to lose sight of the hooligans behind you as the mirrors fold! The controller should disable the lock/fold feature with ‘ignition on’ but if not that just needs a relay on the lock feed to the controller to break circuit when ignition on. Let’s see how it works first.Here’s how mine operates…..
I wanted the same function as @DaveyB mentioned:
‘I would only need the mirrors to fold on lock and then unfold on ignition’
Too many scenarios where I couldn’t unlock my van if it was going to unfold a mirror into an obstacle I parked next to while folded or that had arrived since parking!
But when I first wired everything up then if I manual folded with the switch (like I would when parking next to a wall), then when I switched the ignition off it triggered an unfold....
The fix was to open the aftermarket box and where there is a permanent live feed going to the MES timer relay I swapped this to an ‘ignition on’ live feed. Remember, both are fed to the box so it just needs a couple of crimps to change. I have passed this on to Travelin-Lite and they might adopt it but if not and you do go this path it should be clear enough once opened up.
So now:
Normal park, get out, remote lock and fold
Remote unlock (nothing because I didn’t connect that), ignition on and it unfolds
Park folded by the switch, get out, lock/unlock, ignition on – stays folded if you’ve left the switch at fold
Normal park with remote lock and fold but return to find your mirror blocked – don’t turn the ignition on till you have switched to fold and it stays folded until you manually switch to unfold
Hoping all this helps.
‘I would only need the mirrors to fold on lock and then unfold on ignition’
Too many scenarios where I couldn’t unlock my van if it was going to unfold a mirror into an obstacle I parked next to while folded or that had arrived since parking!
But when I first wired everything up then if I manual folded with the switch (like I would when parking next to a wall), then when I switched the ignition off it triggered an unfold....
The fix was to open the aftermarket box and where there is a permanent live feed going to the MES timer relay I swapped this to an ‘ignition on’ live feed. Remember, both are fed to the box so it just needs a couple of crimps to change. I have passed this on to Travelin-Lite and they might adopt it but if not and you do go this path it should be clear enough once opened up.
So now:
Normal park, get out, remote lock and fold
Remote unlock (nothing because I didn’t connect that), ignition on and it unfolds
Park folded by the switch, get out, lock/unlock, ignition on – stays folded if you’ve left the switch at fold
Normal park with remote lock and fold but return to find your mirror blocked – don’t turn the ignition on till you have switched to fold and it stays folded until you manually switch to unfold
Hoping all this helps.
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Last few posts on this. Firstly, for those who haven’t tackled the trim panels yet a few pointers –
Door cards. Remove the window/mirror switch by lifting at the front to pivot up and unhook at the rear. Unplug. Remove the handle face trim to remove the top two screws, then one in the centre of the panel. At the base, there are two quarter turn catches (in my defence it was poor light when I tried to unscrew them) Then start at the base and work around the edges to pull out the trim clips. Lift up to release the top watching where the trim between the top edge of the card and the door goes.
Between the two doors I had to replace three trim clips so either trust to luck or find some of these on eBay before you start,
The dash end trim panels pull out toward the open door (release from behind the door seal first). Don’t unplug the passenger airbag switch unless you want to clear that fault code.
Lower dash trim is a combination of clips and screws so work your way around starting with the lowest panels in the kick space. The first time you remove one of these headlight switches you need to know the ‘combination’ – turn to Off, push in, turn to Auto, pull out You can then unscrew and lever out the headlight switch surround to make removing that dash panel easier.
After removing the 7 glove-box screws it hinges forward and then hooks off at the base.
You need to lift the gaiter around the gear lever to access at least one of the screws there. Also, note that although all these screws are the same so far there is one at the LHS base of the gear lever surround that is a self-tapper so put that to one side and remember where it goes!
Door cards. Remove the window/mirror switch by lifting at the front to pivot up and unhook at the rear. Unplug. Remove the handle face trim to remove the top two screws, then one in the centre of the panel. At the base, there are two quarter turn catches (in my defence it was poor light when I tried to unscrew them
) Then start at the base and work around the edges to pull out the trim clips. Lift up to release the top watching where the trim between the top edge of the card and the door goes.Between the two doors I had to replace three trim clips so either trust to luck or find some of these on eBay before you start,
The dash end trim panels pull out toward the open door (release from behind the door seal first). Don’t unplug the passenger airbag switch unless you want to clear that fault code.
Lower dash trim is a combination of clips and screws so work your way around starting with the lowest panels in the kick space. The first time you remove one of these headlight switches you need to know the ‘combination’ – turn to Off, push in, turn to Auto, pull out
You can then unscrew and lever out the headlight switch surround to make removing that dash panel easier.After removing the 7 glove-box screws it hinges forward and then hooks off at the base.
You need to lift the gaiter around the gear lever to access at least one of the screws there. Also, note that although all these screws are the same so far there is one at the LHS base of the gear lever surround that is a self-tapper so put that to one side and remember where it goes!
If like me you are taking off your electric without power fold mirrors to replace with power fold mirrors I've given info on the controller and parts I used earlier, here are a few extra notes.
Mirror cap removal and replacement needs care You can see how they clip together from the new ones you have bought. I found it easier to remove the mirror glass to release the clips at the top, then work round with a narrow trim tool to release the bottom clips. I did snap a few catches on the old base trim but that was no problem as I was replacing those. At the end of the job when you refit the caps to the new mirrors make sure everything is lined up before pressing home.
Removing the various aerials from the old mirrors is fine (the black box one is on a sticky pad). On my replacement mirrors the cable hole through the central pivot was smaller. You can cut and re-join the aerial coax but my preference was to cut and slide back the sleeve over the other cables to give more room, remove heat shrinking on the aerial cables and bend their earth tags to a ‘C’ shape so that they would feed through, then slide back the cable sleeve, tape that up and tape where heat shrink was removed if necessary. Makes sense when you see it!
You will need to change your mirror switch and I got part 7E1 959 565K from my dealer. It has a chrome trim which the old one didn’t but that matches the central control dials so I’m happy. Here’s old and new,
(same colour, different lighting conditions!)
Phew, that’s about all! Ask if any questions
Mirror cap removal and replacement needs care
You can see how they clip together from the new ones you have bought. I found it easier to remove the mirror glass to release the clips at the top, then work round with a narrow trim tool to release the bottom clips. I did snap a few catches on the old base trim but that was no problem as I was replacing those. At the end of the job when you refit the caps to the new mirrors make sure everything is lined up before pressing home.Removing the various aerials from the old mirrors is fine (the black box one is on a sticky pad). On my replacement mirrors the cable hole through the central pivot was smaller. You can cut and re-join the aerial coax but my preference was to cut and slide back the sleeve over the other cables to give more room, remove heat shrinking on the aerial cables and bend their earth tags to a ‘C’ shape so that they would feed through, then slide back the cable sleeve, tape that up and tape where heat shrink was removed if necessary. Makes sense when you see it!
You will need to change your mirror switch and I got part 7E1 959 565K from my dealer. It has a chrome trim which the old one didn’t but that matches the central control dials so I’m happy. Here’s old and new,
(same colour, different lighting conditions!)
Phew, that’s about all! Ask if any questions
If like me you are taking off your electric without power fold mirrors to replace with power fold mirrors I've given info on the controller and parts I used earlier, here are a few extra notes.
Mirror cap removal and replacement needs care
Removing the various aerials from the old mirrors is fine (the black box one is on a sticky pad). On my replacement mirrors the cable hole through the central pivot was smaller. You can cut and re-join the aerial coax but my preference was to cut and slide back the sleeve over the other cables to give more room, remove heat shrinking on the aerial cables and bend their earth tags to a ‘C’ shape so that they would feed through, then slide back the cable sleeve, tape that up and tape where heat shrink was removed if necessary. Makes sense when you see it!
You will need to change your mirror switch and I got part 7E1 959 565K from my dealer. It has a chrome trim which the old one didn’t but that matches the central control dials so I’m happy. Here’s old and new,
View attachment 3512 View attachment 3513
(same colour, different lighting conditions!)
Phew, that’s about all! Ask if any questions
Any tips on removing the mirror glass or does it just pull out ?
The glass can be levered off its plastic mounting ring with a wide piece of perspex or similar to spread the load across the whole width of the glass. Or as @steveph suggests, but use as many fingers as you can.
This is what I used on my Touareg many times.
as demonstrated by the Blue man group
This is what I used on my Touareg many times.
as demonstrated by the Blue man group
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Glad I looked at this, I just realised I had my heated mirrors left on, why don't they come on with the rear windscreen.
you can use vcds to allow this to happen
Don't have it
Or with Carista too
