BMW E46 Facelift Coupe Power Fold Mirror Retrofit

After some kind individual decided to rip off my driver side wing mirror, I decided that rather than just repairing/replacing the broken one like for like, I would take the opportunity to upgrade the entire setup to power fold mirrors.

There are different types of mirrors and mirror switches that BMW installed on these cars and the setup of any given car depends on other things such as whether the car has electric memory seats, for example .

This guide is concerned particularly with my own car which, for reference,  had factory installed manual fold mirrors and memory seats. Whilst I uncovered a lot of information about pre facelift cars, there are still some areas that are a mystery to me!

The Switches

The underside of the mirror control switch is coloured depending on the configuration of the car. The main ones are detailed below with part numbers:

Since I had memory seats/mirrors already, I had a light blue backed switch installed. I just needed a pair of power fold mirrors and the purple backed switch (part number 61316901383, approx £54 from BMW).

The Mirrors

The mirrors come in two main types – power fold and manual fold. The wiring on a pre facelift car is a bit more complicated – the connectors are available in different types and the car itself has separate modules for the driver and passenger mirror control. The retrofit at this stage could be more complicated if your car is missing certain modules.

On a facelift vehicle, like mine, BMW shifted mirror control to the GM5 ECU module which eliminates the requirement for separate control modules. This also resulted in the mirrors changing their connector to a ribbon style one that is not backwards compatible with the old pre facelift mirrors.

Hardware – Mirror Frames

Actually replacing the old mirrors with the new power folding ones is fairly straight forward.

1. On the inside of the door, remove the plastic triangle covering the rear of the mirror base plate. You should be able to see two bolts and the mirror cable running into the door.
2. Pulling the top corner of the door card away from the door should pop out the top most retaining clip and if you have small enough hands, you might just be lucky enough to be able to reach the connector clips and undo them. If not, then you will need to remove more of the door card (other bolts in the handle and further retaining clips need to be popped out).
3. Undo the two retaining bolts holding the mirror to the door and the mirror should come free easily.
4. Follow the process in reverse to install the new mirror

Hardware – Mirror Glass

1. Remove the mirror glass from the old mirrors by tilting the glass all the way to one side and pushing gently but firmly till the retaining clip on the opposite side releases. Work your way around the edge until all four are free. Be careful – replacement tinted, heated mirror glass from BMW is around £75 each! Cheaper alternatives here:
   For the saloon
   DoctorAuto DR165561 Door Wing Mirror Glass Outer Heated Blue With Plastic Holder Left side
   DoctorAuto DR165560 Door Wing Mirror Glass Outer Heated Blue With Plastic Holder Right Side
   For the coupe
   BMW 3 Series (E46) (2 Door) 1998 to 2007 Blue Tinted, Aspherical, Electric, Heated Passenger Side (LH) wing mirror glass with backing plate
   BMW 3 Series (E46) (2 Door) 1998 to 2007 Drivers Side (RH) Blue Tinted, Aspherical, Electric, Heated wing mirror glass with backing plate
2. Disconnect the two heating element cables on the rear of the glass
3. Reinstall the glass in the new mirror unit by pushing it evenly onto the clips behind – don’t forget to reconnect the heating element!

Hardware  – Mirror Cover

1. Once the mirror glass has been removed, you should be able to see four retaining clips that hold the plastic cover that shields the rear of the mirror. Depress these clips to release the cover.
2. Reinstall the covers on the new mirrors. Be careful with these too – replacements are around £35 each from BMW and they come unpainted so you would need to have them sprayed to match your car’s paint.

Hardware – Mirror Switch

1. The easiest way to remove the mirror switch is to pop off the adjustment toggle and use a pair of pliers or grips to pull upwards gently. The switch should slide out after a bit of initial resistance.
2. The single connecting cable plugs directly into the new purple switch and it slots into the same hole.

At this point, the mirror adjustment controls should work but the power fold will not. The car needs to be coded to first inform the ECU that power fold mirrors are installed and secondly that the feature should be enabled.

Software – Changing The Vehicle Order (VO)

This post details the process of adding the power fold mirror package to the vehicle option list.

Software – Enabling the Power Fold Feature Using NCS Expert

1. Connect the diagnostic cable and turn the ignition to POSII
2. Start NCS Expert

   

3. Use File > Load to load an ‘Expert Mode’ profile

   

4. Press the VIN/ZCS/FA button (F1)
   You will be prompted to select a chassis and an ECU module to read from. On my car, I selected E46 and the AKMB module. After reading the module, the fields in the top half of the NCS Expert screen will be populated with details of the car (VIN, VO etc). If no information appears, repeat the process with a different module.
5. Press the Back button (F6)
6. Press the Process ECU button (F4)
   We are going to read the settings currently stored on a particular module. From the list, select the module that needs to be read/coded. I selected GM5 since the mirrors on my car are controlled by this module. Older cars will potentially need the FTM and BTM modules as well as the GM5 but the process outlined here is the same for them.
7. Press the Change Job button (F3)
   IMPORTANT: Since we want to read settings and not write at this stage, select CODIERDATEN_LESEN from the list.
8. Press the Execute Job button
   When the text changes from Coding Activ to Coding Ended, the read has completed. A file will have been created in NCSEXPER\WORK called FSW_PSW.TRC (overwriting any older files with this name). This file contains all the settings available in the earlier selected module and their state (usually enabled/aktiv or disabled/nicht aktiv). It is advised that you save this file as a backup with a different name.
9. Create a copy of the saved trace file in the same directory and rename it FSW_PSW.MAN.
   Remove any other file of this name first. This is the file that you need to modify and will eventually write back to the module.
10. Open FSW_PSW.MAN in a text editor.
    All the options here are in German so you may need to do a bit of research if you want to modify any other options but the ones applicable to the folding mirrors that I enabled are as follows:

    FSW_PSW.TRC (Original)	FSW_PSW.MAN (Modified)	Translation
    BEIKLAPP_B_KOMFORTSCHL_GM              nicht_aktiv	BEIKLAPP_B_KOMFORTSCHL_GM aktiv	Comfort Mirrors
    BEIKLAPPEN_GM nicht_aktiv	BEIKLAPPEN_GM aktiv	Folding Mirrors
    SPIEGELMEMORY_GM nicht_aktiv	SPIEGELMEMORY_GM aktiv	Mirror Memory

    Save the file after editing.

11. Press the Process ECU button (F4)
    Select the same module that was originally selected for the read operation in step 6.
12. Press the Change Job button (F3)
    Select SG_CODIEREN from the list. This is the WRITE operation.
13. Press the Execute Job button
    When the text changes from Coding Activ to Coding Ended, the write operation has completed. The modified settings saved in the FSW_PSW.MAN file have now been written to the specified ECU.
14. Turn the key from POSII to OFF then back to POSII to power the modules up again.

All being well, the mirrors should now be fully functional and fold up and down when pressing the button on the interior switch. They will also fold up when you lock the car with the fob and then hold the lock button down (part of the comfort access option). They will fold back down when the car is unlocked.

As mentioned previously, if the vehicle is a pre-facelift, similar options (and likely additional ones) will need to be coded to the door control modules BTM and FTM as well as the GM5.

Hope this helps anyone wanting to do a similar retrofit!