Would a mirror glass just fall out?

'glass' was missing (although it should be obvious from the text and picture). ;-)

Cheers, T i m

That is a standard vauxhall fault (just google it)

It looks as though your glass has dropped off the backing, either plain or heated versions will come with that backing ready attached, or you can buy a stick on replacement from most car shops, which saves messing about getting the old backing off the mirror unit, the method for which varies from car to car, often needing a bit of string worked behind the backing to pull it off its mounts, which sometimes break.

I had a wing mirror glass on my Vauxhall fall out when I was stationary and surprisingly the mirror didn't break. I dabbedd a couple of spots of silicone on the back and it sorted it. This was at least 5 years ago. It is a motorised mirror.

I was once told by a very clever bellend hat you have to be very careful putting glass back into a car mirror. He put the glass back in. It cracked. Be careful.

That would have been back in the days when a mirror was held in the frame by a rubber gasket.

Ooooerr!

So, if you buy a genuine replacement you get the stuff behind what you see in my picture ('the backing') that you say can be difficult to remove or you can just get the glass that you can stick onto the existing plastic backing?

So, would that mean that what you can currently see is some sort of double-sided tape and (ideally) I should remove that and re-stick the replacement glass with something similar (or silicon as was suggested on the thread you linked to) to the original plastic backing?

I haven't interfered with the surface you see in the picture as I didn't know if it contained a heater element or somesuch?

How would I know if my mirrors were heated (apart from waiting till the winter). ;-) I thought there was another button somewhere but maybe they come on with the rear screen heater?

Cheers, T i m

Some time back I had a mirror crack and got a replacement one which had pads to enable it to be stuck in place over the old damaged one, I.e. no need to remove the damaged one.

That's fine, as long as the sticky pads are happy to stick to whatever the surface is that I have left?

e.g. If it's a surface that should be stuck to the back of the glass and now isn't, how can I be sure it won't reacts with whatever I try to stick to it?

If what I currently see is just the remains of a mirror sized sticky backing I might be tempted to remove the offside mirror and do that one as well (before it falls off).

The o/s mirror is one of those split ones but I can't remember if the n/s was matching?

Cheers, T i m

For what it's worth the o/s door mirror glass in my 57 plate Zafira came loose (but didn't fall off) at speed something like 3 or 4 years ago. Stuck it back with double-sided tape, and it's been OK since.

So is this really the Vauxhall phenomenon (in these numbers) as MrC suggests? I don't think it's ever happened to any of my other vehicles (makes)?

OOI, can you remember if the glass came away from the (adhesive) backing or the adhesive backing away from the mount? e.g. When you went to replace the glass, could you see the mechanical guts of the mirror?

Cheers, T i m

I think it was the glass itself coming away from the backing plate, but I can't remember exactly. I managed to press it back on the move (on the A1(M) at the time) and fixed it with some borrowed tape when I reached my destination.

Ok, what I think I have then possibly:

Lucky save. ;-)

Cheers, T i m