Convex Blind-Spot Mirrors

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-convex-blind-spot-mirror//N-25jh?counter=1&filterByKeyWord=convex+mirror&fromString=search&itemIdentifier=31941_0_0

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.

So I am really odd, I place these in inner bottom, that's right I'll admit it. Ya know why, this is useless space on the mirror, what I can see here I can generally see rvm, I leave the bigger portion of the mirror to see a clear shot, by sticking a small(orbit convex mirror ) I can get that car creeping my blind spot and my roof rack and the ground for tight corners. Any thoughts

I used to drive commercial.. inner bottom for me. I -want- to see what is right next to the van. It is amazing what can hide there.

On my "big" truck, I had a full array of three mirrors on the passenger side. The standard mirror and a convex mirror top and bottom. I also had one attached to the top of the door that aimed straight down to give me, at a glance, everything that was next to the almost 50 feet of truck I was driving.

I'm with taco, inner and low in the least useful part of the mirror and that's where the adjustable convex goes. I like the little squareish ones on ball and socket pedestals on cars and the bigger twist to adjust round ones on bigger truck mirrors.

I prefer concave blind spot mirrors and not knowing what I'm going to change lanes into.

I likes the 3" 360° swivel stick-ons for the lower right on driver side truck mirror. I've used 1.5" spots on cars and the '14 Silverado has a 1.5 built in, requires a bit of eye training but can be done. Once conditioned it's automatic.

They are stock on my Fiesta. Ford puts them at the upper outer corner.

Proper adjustment of the mirrors helps a lot. Most people have them too close.

My eye gets drawn to the little mirror, and makes the whole mirror useless to me. I prefer to lean ahead in the seat to change my field of vision.

Yes, everyone else on the whole planet, I know I'm wrong.

I put a couple convex spot mirrors on the outer, lower corner of the mirrors on my SX4, and I've found it makes it harder for me to gauge where cars are that I've passed going the same direction. Using the headlights of cars going the same way to gauge distance is now much harder to do. It's a little hard to explain. This spring I plan on relocating them to position #1 in jrw's image.

Not sure if they make them for your van, but I put aspherical mirrors on my Golf. Inner most 2/3 are like the normal pass side convex mirror. Outer 1/3 is even more convex so you can see a lane over. They took some getting used to but I love them. Also, the cheap circular mirrors at most autoparts store distort annd aren't very clearn esp. at night. You see a blob and know what is there but not much else.

Lean over to the window on the left, adjust mirror to barely see edge of your vehicle in it. Sit back normal. You can now see the blind spot area better leaving you to turn your head (chin to shoulder) quickly for anything right next to you. For right side lean over to center of vehicle, adjust right side until you barely see rear of your vehicle. In a van however a smaller convex might be helpful when there are no windows on the passenger side.

Blah, blah, blah backing up and parallel parking. Learn reference points and landmarks. Much safer than trusting mirrors.

Mirrors are like good friends, always at your side and willing to help, but often times missing crucial information.

In the words of Red Leader, "Pick up your visual scanning."

Yes I teach DE.

all well and good VW.. but if you are driving a commercial vehicle with no windows to the back... mirrors are your -only- source of information

When all our buses just had an 8" square mirror on each side we'd get small spot mirrors to stick on them. When it's all you have you get used to using them pretty quick. I also made up a large spring clamp with a 3" round mirror bolted to it I could clamp onto the right side mirror arm to see who was running up on the right side. Not too long long ago our buses had no right side mirror. I have no idea how people drove like that.