Hi
I had to do this recently as I got the apparently not-uncommon problem where the gear breaks and the motor for folding the mirror in runs all the time. There are a couple of pictures in posts and some videos on YouTube but they tend to jump straight from removing the mirror from the door directly to the gear. It took me quite a bit of time to work out how to disassemble the mirror so I thought I'd put some notes in case they're useful for anyone else who has to do it. I’m afraid it’s been a couple of weeks since I did the repair so my memory of the details is fading, and in retrospect I could have taken much better pictures, but at least it should make it quicker for you than it was for me. Anyway...
Lever off the top of little triangle on the inside of the door then lift it up and away. It will hang on by the wire to the speaker. Unclip the bundle of wires going in to the mirror. This will stop the motor running continuously, so a good start even before going in and fixing the gear.
Ensure the mirror is folded in, you’ll need it to be like that to disassemble it. If it's not already then I don’t think there’s any option but to force it
. The mirror is held on by 3 machine screws, undo those and remove the mirror.
Remove the mirror panel. This is just a case of pushing one edge (I think I did the bottom) until there’s enough of the opposite edge sticking out to grip, then simply lever it out. There are a couple of wires that attach for the heating element, they should pull off of the panel though mine were stuck on to the extent that I wasn’t comfortable pulling any harder to try and remove them. Leaving it attached made this more awkward but still possible.
The internals are attached to the casing by 5 torks (star) screws. Four are relatively obvious, I’ve shown them below just in the casing. One however is hidden at the bottom of the mirror and is only exposed when the mirror is folded in. There’s also a wire that goes to the mirror indicator LED unit, that can simply be unclipped.
I don’t think it’s necessary to remove the motor that alters the angle of the mirror though I did as I was exploring so taking apart anything I could! It’s held on by 3 torx screws and the wires clip in.
To access the folding mechanism motor there are 2 long torx screws that go through horizontally and one (I think, sorry, memory fading there) going down, remove those and pull the motor unit out. There are I think 4 torx screws holding the motor unit together, remove those and pull the top off and you will be able to see the gears. If you search for ‘i30 wing mirror gear’ on eBay there are replacements, I went for a metal one rather than plastic as though it was quite a bit more expensive I really didn’t fancy having to go through all this again. The gear can just be pulled out and the replacement slotted in.
Now you just have to reverse everything to put it back together!
