1999 E300 mirror--I'm in the mirror taking the picture


Something's wrong with the driver side mirror in my 1999 E300 Turbodiesel! It seems to have developed a sort of gold/amber cast . I can't say I noticed it until the past few years. However one day maybe two months ago the top one-third or so suddenly got perfectly clear as you can see from the photo, compared to the lower two-thirds, which seems to have gotten a even darker. Worse things could happen, I'm sure. But this is distracting because I now have to really concentrate on this "split image" to be sure what I am seeing. Until this happened I needed only a glance to check the mirror. I thought a coating of some sort might have come off but I can see no evidence; the mirror surface is totally smooth. My mechanic says it's not a film but rather some sort of oil that heats the mirror and makes it "self-adjusting" with regard to bright lights. And that MB will be happy to sell me one for $463-ish dollars. A new one apparently just snaps into place! Sheesh!


By coincidence he had an E300 of the same vintage in for something unrelated. The corresponding mirror on that car lacked any sort of gold or amber cast.


I'm curious to learn what happened here. And of course whether the dud mirror is something I can replace myself? Can I get one online for a lot less money even if it lacks the bells and whistles?


I appreciate any suggestions.

 

Hello - from what I've read (link below), it sounds like the auto dimming feature is going bad.

https://mbworld.org/forums/e-class-w...ged-color.html