Rear View Mirror

[Chris-CSL]

here the picture of my one i am off back to the dealership as just had some warranty work done on it and asked them to check over anything else and they missed this (was not there though to be honest on sunday) only noticed it as i was driving off from the dealership.

[mattCSLnut]

After reading this thread I thought I'd pop into the Garage and awake my hibernating Cecil
Had a close up look at my rear view mirror and sure enough it seems to have similar issues. :banghead:
Took it off straight away, just incase it decides to pee itself. Pix below.

[mattCSLnut]

Highly Recommended to all CSLR members

I had mine repaired here:

http://www.radar-mirror.com/Mirror_Repair.html

+1 :thumbs: for http://www.radar-mirror.com/Mirror_Repair.html :thumbs: Here's my most excellent experience.

After discovering what was the very beginnings of my CSLs internal rear view mirror leak I email Scott @ radar-mirror with a couple of pix of my mirror for his inspection.
Sure enough Scott replayed straight away to confirm my suspicions.

So off to Texas my mirror went via Parcel Force AIRSURE Tracked mail @ £17 (insured for £250) It arrived in the USA few days later and was promptly repaired more or less the same day (with a lifetime warranty) and posted back a day after.
The whole process from start to finish was extremely smooth, Scott replays to emails swiftly and kept me informed at all times.

Total cost for return postage & mirror repair was $144 USD, $99 of which was for the actual repair and $45 for USPS Recorded & Insured postage, easily settled via PayPal. Total door to door turn around time was almost 2 weeks however over a week of that was down to the UK Customs who held onto my mirror before billing me for VAT on the Total US spend ($144) which worked out @ £27 (£8 of which was Parcel Force handling fee)
Total cost of return postage, repairs & VAT in GBP was £141.65 ...
Before deciding to go with Scott @ Radar-wirrors repairs, BMW very kindly made a " Good will " offer but that unfortunately was almost double of my total repair costs. Incidentally to buy the whole NEW M3 CSL mirror outright from BMW would have been in excess of £400 :119: minus any dealer discount you may get.

This seem the obvious way to go for anyone who's Cecil is either out of warranty or in excess of 60 000 miles which automatically voids any interior trim Warranty claims regardless of what Warranty level cover you have.
Few pix of the repaired mirror back in it rightful place :-D

[Mark CSL]

i got a new one with my warranty as it does not dim when its like that cost £00000:thumbs:

[shimmy]

I WANT NEW MIRROR! :thumbs:

nice one MAtt

[mattCSLnut]

i got a new one with my warranty as it does not dim when its like that cost £00000:thumbs:

Lucky yours is just under 60K miles Mark

[Neil M]

. Total door to door turn around time was almost 2 weeks however over a week of that was down to the UK Customs who held onto my mirror before billing me for VAT on the Total US spend ($144) which worked out @ £27 (£8 of which was Parcel Force handling fee)

Excuse me for being thick, but why did you have to pay 'Import Duty' and 'VAT' on a mirror that was yours to begin with, on which technically VAT had already been paid, it was a repair and not a new mirror :smokin:

[shimmy]

Excuse me for being thick, but why did you have to pay 'Import Duty' and 'VAT' on a mirror that was yours to begin with, on which technically VAT had already been paid, it was a repair and not a new mirror :smokin:

exactly

[mattCSLnut]

Excuse me for being thick, but why did you have to pay 'Import Duty' and 'VAT' on a mirror that was yours to begin with, on which technically VAT had already been paid, it was a repair and not a new mirror :smokin:

Not at all ... and a good question which I asked HM Revenue & Customs as well.
The VAT payable is on the repair & return shipping costs, not on the value of the mirror that's mine in the first place. $ 144 USD = £97 ish so £19 VAT + £8 Parcel Force handling charge is correct.

[shimmy]

Not at all ... and a good question which I asked HM Revenue & Customs as well.
The VAT payable is on the repair & return shipping costs, not on the value of the mirror that's mine in the first place. $ 144 USD = £97 ish so £19 VAT + £8 Parcel Force handling charge is correct.

Exactly :smokin:

[Neil M]

I wouldn't be too happy about that, fair enough if it's a new item that's been purchased overseas.
Like my infamous tyre totes, which cost almost as much in duty and handling as they did to purchase. Is the chap in America (Scott @ radar-mirrors) aware of this? :whistle:

My other overseas purchase was the equally infamous gloves, however the cap sent them marked as a 'gift' without any prompting and so avoided any duty.
Perhaps that's the way to go, rather than pay duty on a repair undertaken in a country where VAT is not applicable, it's not that we have a choice of having them repaired here :119:

[73CSL]

I've had this issue sending porsche parts to the us for repair.

Way around this appears to be to label it as a warranty return

[mattCSLnut]

I wouldn't be too happy about that, fair enough if it's a new item that's been purchased overseas.
Like my infamous tyre totes, which cost almost as much in duty and handling as they did to purchase. Is the chap in America (Scott @ radar-mirrors) aware of this? :whistle:

My other overseas purchase was the equally infamous gloves, however the cap sent them marked as a 'gift' without any prompting and so avoided any duty.
Perhaps that's the way to go, rather than pay duty on a repair undertaken in a country where VAT is not applicable, it's not that we have a choice of having them repaired here :119:

Scott runs a business so he's not going to be laying about the nature of his activities marking items as GIFY when they are not, as that would be fraudulent and very unprofessional. Our VAT is not his concern just as his local Texas taxes are none of mine, especially as I didn't pay them (as I'm not a Texas resident).
I'm not exactly happy about UK Customs charging me extra tax on trivial stuff like this but rules are rules.

[shimmy]

Exactly.

[theodoros]

hi guys, a quick question..

does BMW UK have in stock / can source the oval rear view mirror?

I was told that the oval ones are discontinued and these (photo below is from google images) are the only available replacements:

cheers,

theo