Smaller Rear View Mirror

If you drive a lot of twisty country roads you may have found that the JUMBO sized OEM rear view mirror gets in the way, obscuring a lot of the view out of the windscreen.

Daewoo mirror

Daewoo Matiz

A cheap alternative is to fit the mirror from a daewoo matiz (funny wee 3 cylinder shopping trolly, i'd guess most big scrappys would have a few crashed ones. - my local breaker in Glasgow had 5 today.

The pic shows the new one in place above and the old one below in comparison. - it doesn't look like an enormous difference in size, but it makes a BIG difference when you're driving the car!

This mod works for S1s and early S2s. These rear view mirrors have their ball joints in the centre of the back of the mirror. The mod does not work for 111Rs and S2 exiges. These have their ball joints on the top of the mirror. I don't know if it works for later K-engined S2s.

Instructions :

1 - remove lotus mirror, by sliding the whole thing (including its stalk) upwards towards the top of the windscreen. - it just slides up leaving a small flat mounting plate in place on the windscreen.

2 - remove the mirror from the stalk by popping the "ball and socket" joint out of joint, - just angle it too far in any direction forcably.

3 - find a Daewoo Matiz in a scrappy. - don't bother trying to remove the stalk and all from the windscreen (i couldn't manage), just dislocate the ball and socket joint in the same way. Just take the mirror leaving the stalk behind.

4 - put the new mirror face down on something soft like your seat, put the ball on the end of your Lotus stalk into the socket of the Daewoo mirror and shove downwards HARD untill it clicks into place.

5 - slide the whole thing back onto the windscreen mounting.

Bingo!

Mine cost me all of £3!!! It works a treat. Much improved visibility, and you retain the lever on the bottom to "dip" the mirror.

Notes

It seems the s1 mirror was changed at some stage - my '98 s1 has a small matiz-sized mirror fitted as standard.

The "big" OEM mirrors are ~235mm wide at widest point, the "small" OEM mirrors are about 205mm - measure yours first before you go rooting about in a scrap yard!

Other options: Child view mirrors

Another option is a stick-on mirror from halfords, easy to fit and also quite cheap.

http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_storeId_10001_catalogId_10151_productId_222191_langId_-1_CarSelectorCatalogId__CarSelectorGroupId__varient__categoryId_52210_crumb__parentcategoryrn_52210

Also try the one available from Mothercare!! Looks neater and ?better vision.

http://www.mothercare.com/gp/product/B000MCWY3M/ref=ts_1_3/026-7029686-0202023?ie=UTF8&mcb=core