OE BMW Mirror Motor Discrepancy?

[thegenius46m]

It appears BMW has made a change to the female connector on the E46 M3 mirror motor and my parts guy and I are equally confused. According to realoem and my vin lookup, PN 51167895276
is the correct part for the passenger mirror motor for cars with powered seats, heated mirrors, and memory but this picture below should tell you what I am dealing with atm. The new connector for that part number is a completely different style. My parts guy placed another order for that same part number and got the same thing again. We thought it was a packaging error but sadly this is not the case.



As you can see in that pic the original is a rectangle and the new one is a completely different shape. I don't even know what car that new style connector goes to and even if I source it in the ETK, I would be concerned the pin outs do not match the motor which is a big problem.

Anyone else run into this and know what to order? I'm at a stalemate atm because the 274 part number is for a car without memory and heating

https://www.realoem.com/bmw/enUS/showparts?id=BL93-USA-11-2002-E46-BMW-M3&diagId=51_4233

Even ECS and every online vendor shows the 276 part number with the original rectangle connector.


FYI this is not my first rodeo with the ETK.

[heinzboehmer]

I can't answer your question, but I did recently take one of mine apart (out of curiosity), so I can at least offer some insight into the mechanism. My car has memory seats, but no heat (although that shouldn't make a difference because it's the glass that's heated, not the adjustment mechanism).

The thing is super simple. There's two motors, one for the up/down axis and one for the left/right axis. Each has its own gearbox that drives both the tilting mechanism and a potentiometer so that the memory module can locate it along its path. Since it's so simple, I really doubt that it's cheaper to run two separate production processes for the cars with and without the memory module. But, there are two separate part numbers, so maybe BMW decided that it was worth it to create a version of the mechanism without the potentiometers.

My module has seven pins in the connector, so if the "non memory" ones have less, then they are for sure missing the potentiometers. If they have seven too, then I'd say it's pretty likely that the two parts are actually the same, even if they have different part numbers.

Anyway, here's a couple pics of the insides. Labeled the not so obvious bits (for one axis only) in the second one:




Depending on what the reason is for replacing yours, it might make sense to swap in working parts from a used one or the you got that's different. Might even be able to find replacement motors and other parts on eBay. Or the fix could be as simple as relubing stuff.

Disassembly is straight forward. One screw in the middle and then everything else is clipped together. The screw looks like it sets preload/gear lash, but I'm pretty sure it actually does not. There's a stop right after the threads, so no need to worry about trying to put it right back where you found it. Its actual purpose is just to locate the hemisphere with the motors onto the one with the drive track. It is screwed into plastic though so finger tight is where you want to leave it.

This might have been completely useless for you, but I kinda got the urge to document this when I saw your post



Oh and one more thing. I ran into this when trying to find pics of the "non memory" mechanisms and it looks suspiciously similar to what you got. Are you 100% sure that you're actually getting the part that you're ordering?

https://www.ecstuning.com/b-genuine-porsche-parts/adjust-motor-mirror/95562404701/

[chalaka]

I can't answer your question, but I did recently take one of mine apart (out of curiosity), so I can at least offer some insight into the mechanism. My car has memory seats, but no heat (although that shouldn't make a difference because it's the glass that's heated, not the adjustment mechanism).

The thing is super simple. There's two motors, one for the up/down axis and one for the left/right axis. Each has its own gearbox that drives both the tilting mechanism and a potentiometer so that the memory module can locate it along its path. Since it's so simple, I really doubt that it's cheaper to run two separate production processes for the cars with and without the memory module. But, there are two separate part numbers, so maybe BMW decided that it was worth it to create a version of the mechanism without the potentiometers.

My module has seven pins in the connector, so if the "non memory" ones have less, then they are for sure missing the potentiometers. If they have seven too, then I'd say it's pretty likely that the two parts are actually the same, even if they have different part numbers.

Anyway, here's a couple pics of the insides. Labeled the not so obvious bits (for one axis only) in the second one:




Depending on what the reason is for replacing yours, it might make sense to swap in working parts from a used one or the you got that's different. Might even be able to find replacement motors and other parts on eBay. Or the fix could be as simple as relubing stuff.

Disassembly is straight forward. One screw in the middle and then everything else is clipped together. The screw looks like it sets preload/gear lash, but I'm pretty sure it actually does not. There's a stop right after the threads, so no need to worry about trying to put it right back where you found it. Its actual purpose is just to locate the hemisphere with the motors onto the one with the drive track. It is screwed into plastic though so finger tight is where you want to leave it.

This might have been completely useless for you, but I kinda got the urge to document this when I saw your post



Oh and one more thing. I ran into this when trying to find pics of the "non memory" mechanisms and it looks suspiciously similar to what you got. Are you 100% sure that you're actually getting the part that you're ordering?

https://www.ecstuning.com/b-genuine-...r/95562404701/

wondering if you know if it's feasible to swap pin or something to change "up down" left "right" triggering?

asking this because this has being bothering me for over the last 7 years .. haha (never really bothers me when driving, but it's always an pending issue on my to do list)

bought used side mirrors from UK, for some reasons, up down, left right are somehow opposite when i turn the corresponded control knob

[heinzboehmer]

wondering if you know if it's feasible to swap pin or something to change "up down" left "right" triggering?

asking this because this has being bothering me for over the last 7 years .. haha (never really bothers me when driving, but it's always an pending issue on my to do list)

bought used side mirrors from UK, for some reasons, up down, left right are somehow opposite when i turn the corresponded control knob

Interesting. Would never have guessed that that was different between LHD and RHD cars. Left is still left on RHD cars, no? Lol

Anyway, I didn't follow the traces when I took the unit apart, but there's seven pins, so my guess for what they do is the following: 1 is ground, 2 are for the signals from the potentiometers for each axis and the remaining 4 are for forward/reverse for each axis.

Your issue should be fixable by swapping the forward/reverse control wires in the blue connector going to the tilting mechanism. Not sure which wires would need to be swapped, but the answer is probably in some wiring diagram within TIS.

[chalaka]

thank you sir for the reply

guess one day, i just need to take it apart at where the plug is, and play around with pins.

it's really a mystery to me as well ..
i swapped left and right mirror, no help, still same issues..

when i turn left or right, mirror actually moves up and down ..

(or maybe i should rotate the control knob instead? :P) .. hahaha

[thegenius46m]

Oh and one more thing. I ran into this when trying to find pics of the "non memory" mechanisms and it looks suspiciously similar to what you got. Are you 100% sure that you're actually getting the part that you're ordering?

https://www.ecstuning.com/b-genuine-...r/95562404701/

This wouldn’t surprise me! But the part was ordered through the dealer twice now with the 276 part number on the box but what baffles me is there is no part number anywhere on the motor housing to verify. It does have a magna logo though but from what you just linked that’s wonderful to know that this could be a supply chain problem 🫣

I just bought the whole thing brand new because I honestly didn’t want to deal with taking it apart and the discrepancies with the different motors people have tried to use to rebuild this. I have so many other projects to work on atm that the piece of mind just made more sense to buy the whole thing. Yet now we have a bigger problem getting the right part 🤣


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[heinzboehmer]

I just bought the whole thing brand new because I honestly didn’t want to deal with taking it apart and the discrepancies with the different motors people have tried to use to rebuild this. I have so many other projects to work on atm that the piece of mind just made more sense to buy the whole thing. Yet now we have a bigger problem getting the right part 🤣

Yeah fair enough. Super annoying if this turns out to be a part distribution error, but at least you wouldn't need to worry about adapter harnesses or anything like that.

[bmwfnatic]

A lot of cars use this exact part, another example is this for a VW Passat, identical part:
https://www.ecstuning.com/b-genuine-...ch/3d0959578c/

This thread is the source of all information regarding the subject:
https://www.bimmerforums.com/forum/s...Knowledge-Bomb

Also keep in mind that the picture of a part on ECS is only taken the first time they receive a certain part, you can see how old it is based on the copyright.
I don't think I've ever seen them update the pictures even if the part was changed slightly.

What could be happening is that not BMW, but simply the OE supplier for these brands, is putting the wrong ones in the wrong boxes.

Hope you figure it out.

[thegenius46m]

A lot of cars use this exact part, another example is this for a VW Passat, identical part:
https://www.ecstuning.com/b-genuine-...ch/3d0959578c/

This thread is the source of all information regarding the subject:
https://www.bimmerforums.com/forum/s...Knowledge-Bomb

Also keep in mind that the picture of a part on ECS is only taken the first time they receive a certain part, you can see how old it is based on the copyright.
I don't think I've ever seen them update the pictures even if the part was changed slightly.

What could be happening is that not BMW, but simply the OE supplier for these brands, is putting the wrong ones in the wrong boxes.

Hope you figure it out.

Yup that last part is exactly my concern. My guy just opened a case with BMW to investigate because I sadly think its a supply chain error. I've seen that bimmerforums thread a few times and recall the internals are mostly the same but you still have to take apart some components and transpose them over which I dont want to deal with honestly. And yes, ECS doesn't typically update the photos but from time to time I actually have seen them do so.