Any number of things can come into play... It sounds like guys on the coast or up north are having more issues than say the guys in Arizona or Texas...

It all has to do with time and oxidation build up between the two aluminum brackets.

 

I broke my mirror trying to relocate it, LOL. Live in Northeast and it has 40k of elements on it (although it is garage kept).

I think I would have been fine if I had read the how-tos on here before (i.e. tips like keeping the bolt unscrewed only partially and hitting it with mallet) and been a little more patient, but who knows...

Ordered new mirror and hopefully it will go smoother on round 2 LOL.

 

I just got back from the dealer to check out a couple of new things that Jeep has done that needed to be confirmed. I checked the mirrors and it appears that Jeep has gone back to painting the aluminum brackets black again... This is good but also means that there will always be the 2008-09 oxidized mirror issue..

 

Nice! and i'm now going with relocated mirror for summer and maybe spring.. winter and automne i'll put back mirror on the door I guess.

Thanks for check this out for us RR !!!
I'm about to order your XHD front and rear bumper fyi. still try to price match a bit.

 

I struggled when I installed mine. Finally what ended up working was using the flat end of a drill pit and a light touch of a hammer to pop the mirros off. Worked great

 

Nice to see a confirmation of something I was thinking about. As long as the punch, phillips head screw driver, or drill bit is smaller than the threaded hole of the mirror head base, this trick should work good.

 

I had very little difficulty getting my mirrors off (17K miles, TX). I had to tug a bit, but they came apart OK. I wound up keeping the stock bracket on the passenger side. I miss the that mirror, but I really couldn't deal with having 70% of it blocked off.

The passenger side problem is really silly if you ask me - why not just extend the new bracket a bit, or curve it slightly forward? Seems like poor engineering to me.

 

damn, i am gonna take em off and put em back on just to keep em fresh and frosty

 

Well... Sense I designed them I guess I'll respond the best I can.

These were one of the first items we produced for the JK. At that time early 2007 we were still coming off TJ related items. We had that customer (TJ owners) in mind with the JK products. If anyone here has had older Jeeps (CJ,YJ, TJ) you will know that the stock mirror locations were never very good in the first place. CJ's by far being the worst. It's amazing the number of calls we get from TJ owners installing the CJ style mirrors and cannot grasp the fact that you view the passenger side mirror through the front of the windshield... But I digress. Anyway the YJ and TJ mirror relocation brackets worked good but honestly you could not see any of the passenger side mirror when relocate.. When I say none I really mean NONE... of the passenger side.

When it came time to design the JK versions we knew that there were going to be new people to Jeep and that no mirror visible was not the way to go (never owned a Jeep before). I fabbed up 4 to 5 prototypes to test several ideas. Please keep in mind that there is a lot more to it than you might think. Just getting the shape correct to keep them from whistling at 60mph killed 2 of the designs. Another aspect was the placement of the mirror in relation to the front doors when opened. This alone forces the mirror head to be pointed in a set position. Next came the look of the mirror... We wanted something that also looked half way decent. I had 2 of the designs made so that the mirror heads were further away from the A-pillar (windshield). They looked like Dumbo ears so a compromise had to be made.... In the end 1/3 visibility was far better than the whistling Dumbo ears. I can take some comfort in knowing that this design gives you more visible mirror on the passenger side than any previous relocation kit used on YJ's - TJ's... So to say it was poor engineering is like saying we didn't even try..

The sad thing is that if I had made them with the Dumbo ears I would be typing this reply to why they were so freaking ugly... You just can't please everyone...

 

Exactly... I vote to get the blindspot mirror and put it on the 1/3 you can see, and live with it. If that doesn't suit you, buy some other product?

Your options other than these for the passenger side is pretty much a lange quick mirror II or other door hinge mount mirror and read the complaints on those... LOL. I returned mine after 2 days b/c although I could see 100% of them, they vibrated so much it was worthless anyway...