I have a van and need to see better for changing lanes in traffic with and without a trailer. I’m curious what corner of my side mirror would be the best compromise to mount a convex blind-spot mirror.
I have been observing other vehicles on the road and see a variety of locations. What are the plusses and minuses? Would a different location work better for the passenger side mirror? Let me know your reasoning.
Phantom
Funny, this is a pet peve of mine. It kills me when I see people place these wrong.
The best placement is as low as possible and as far out as possible.
On the passanger side that would be at the low, right corner.
On the driver side that would be at the low left corner.
In the sample below, I choose position #3.
If not #3 then #1 is my second best choice (which may have to do with the design of the mirror.)
Never #2 or #4
You can now find these stick on convex mirrors that come with a piviot and are adjustable. I like them.
Here is another tip for the back of the van. I had the small version of these on the back of my Astro. It made parallel parking very easy and I could see right to the ground just a few feet off the bumper.
on my old van with no rear view mirror, i had big convex mirrors stuck on the outside lower corner of my side views as described above.
If you stick it on the inside edge of your mirror, half of your view with it will just be of the sides of your van.
Drivers side low and inboard = cars close to your rear wheel
pass side low and outboard. = cars in other lane Paul B
I put them on the outer edge, down low.
I use the inside edge of the regular mirror to see the edge of the car. Usefull when backing through tight spaces. The outer edge of the regular mirror is for seeing vehicles out in the further areas around my car. Something a convex mirror is for. So this location matches imo.
On large square mirrors, I have the convex mirror mounted down low.
I hate those little spot mirrors. You can't get one large enough to do any good without covering the whole mirror.
So I got two of these:
They are the large size but they do come in two smaller sizes. The best feature is that they are adjustable so you can aim them how you want without changing your regular mirrort.
I got them online at Auto Barn
Outer edge low is the most intuitive place, your brain can integrate the convex image in with the rest of the mirror's image with less problem than any other place. Other places, your brain has to rethink the spatial orientation, and can get confused. It doesn't seem to matter what shape the mirror is.
I rented a large van from Budget a few months ago, it had these mirrors at the bottom, outside edges of the regular rear view mirror. If the professionals put them there, that would seem to be the best spot for them.
My Econo, I put the small one on the outer,lower edge of the mirror. Its intuitive, like pstbrc said
mine is round ... 2" in dia and adjustable... mounted in the #4 position ... seems to work quite well there
pivoting round convex mirror, what jrw said. 3" dia., dbl. sided tape stick-on, pivoting base is eccentric so rotating the mirror moves the view in or outward. AA or AZ has 'em.
I put em on the inside lower of PU mirror. Took a few days to get used to but now it's the first thing I look at in the side mirrors. If you don't like em heat gun will remove them and they're only $6/ set.
I mount these on the top outer corner (#1 in the diagram above). One bonus of this location is it gives me a great view of the lines that mark parking spots. I back into spots about 90% of the time, so it's a big help. I run my regular mirrors so as to eliminate blind spots, so the blindspot mirrors are kind of a failsafe for me.
http://www.autozone.com/autozone/accessories/Pilot-Automotive-3-3-4-in-dia-round-c...
I originally thought this would hog space on the truck mirror, but it'll blend right in, you're looking at the whole picture any way, your eye will figure it out. Smaller versions available too.
