When I first bought my car I noticed the tint on the side view mirrors to have some brownish discoloration. I heard that this could be from leaving the heated mirrors on too long. Because of that I hardly used them aside from in the winter when it snowed or something. I replaced one of the mirrors because of the discoloration being so bad and I noticed as of late its starting to happen again. Although its not as bad as it initially was before I was wondering if there is another cause of this? Is there some preventative measure to better stop it? I know this is minor stuff, it just looks

 

I'll be replacing the glass on both my mirrors this summer. And I never use the heated mirrors either.

 

Any chance the heaters are on but the little light by the switch isn't on? That would be an odd malfunction but would explain your situation. Easy enough to check with a meter. If you replace them you might just leave one wire off if you don't want to use them any way. This way if you accidentally hit the switch it's no problem. I don't think anything in the car will care.

My drivers side is just starting to show some browning on two small areas on the edges. I never use the heaters and am convinced it's just the more aggressive chemicals on the roads in the winter. OR when I popped out the mirror to service the actuator I may have contacted those areas with the screwdriver I was prying with. That may have let in the salt. Mine's not $50 bad yet so I'll leave it.

 

i think this is pretty common. i've read at some point that it might just be poor craftsmanship, that should have been a recall, but wasn't. it's not the heater thing, though that may make it worse. but over time, it just oxidizes because the edges were not sealed from the environment well enough....but can't remember the source of this info, so take it for what it is....

i obsessed about this initially when i bought the car last summer...but then life went on and i had more important things to deal with, hahah. maybe just live with it until it becomes a safety hazard

 

I have both mirrors starting, it is very annoying. Never used the heated mirrors.

 

Thanks for the replies. Yea, it's definitely not the worst problem unless it gets really bad. Just annoying.. Maybe I will look into making sure the mirror heaters are functioning properly even when appearing to be off. Is there a fuse I could also pull for the heaters?