There are these white flaps on the back of the side mirror glass:

But sometimes they are missing:


Naturally I assumed those are simply incomplete pieces...
...but then I saw this video: The mounts are still there, but no flaps in them.

What is their function?

 

I have never seen something similar on any car that I own, and my Jag also does not have them, but then my Super V8 is an early model, where the side mirrors are different.

Maybe they are there to help position the mirror glass when putting it back in place? In any case, I do not think that they are essential.

Best regards,

Thomas

 

So I opened mine...

First I assumed maybe they're there to help dumping the vibrations going into the glass but now I think your assumption is probably closer to the truth.

 

Also, when opening the mirror three clips broke. As with seemingly everything in these cars the plastic is brittle af, near-zero°C temperature in my garage probably doesn't help either...
I am not very upset about that as I plan to swap the glass for a spherical one anyways...
...in some videos people make it look like the procedure of opening the mirror is easy and safe - well it depends. 😅
My point is, be prepared to lose couple of those.
Despite breaking off of those 3 clips the glass still holds firmly enough, probably thanks to those white flaps.

For now I have put that thing back until I figure out:
- how to undo the damned black connector (isn't there a special tool for these bstrds? ...I would need a third hand)
- what to do about those two wires visible in the dead center at 0:05, what is their purpose?

Once you put the glass back it is tilted in a random way, unsurprisingly. I was wondering if this would confuse the motor within the mirror and maybe forced me to set-up my memory preset again. I can confirm that doesn't seem to be the case, after pressing the "1" memory button the glass returned to its proper position.

The brittleness of everything tiny-AND-plastic in this car makes me lust for a 3d-scanner. Soon or later we will start running out of replacement parts.

 

Don't know for sure, but I'm pretty sure that the two wires by themselves are for the electrochromic function. The side mirrors are electrochromic, and follow what the interior mirror does for dimming. OTOH, if the mirrors are heated, they might be for that. Living in Florida, I don't have much use for heated mirrors so I have no idea if they're heated.

EDIT: I didn't see the two wires by themselves before. Those are for the heater. The black connector is for the electrochromic dimming.

 

Edit: Apparently all x358s might have had the heated mirrors as standard, possibly... 🤔🤔🤔
--

The thing is the mirrors don't have heating... Well I am assuming they don't - heating wasn't listed in the options (only the electro-chromatic dimming), and the car was originally sold on Hawaii, does not have the heated windscreen either. (I.e. there are no visible wires in the windscreen, and it only has the simple DEF button on the console.)
I don't know how to confirm this exactly though. Well maybe I could turn on rear-window defrost and try to feel the mirror glass with my hand maybe...? Or one of these:
Would it make sense for the auto-dimming to have both the pair of wires AND the black connector?

 

Well, yeah. If you have to replace the glass but not the entire assembly, you have to be able to disconnect it, right? And even if you can't get the glass by itself and have to order the whole assembly, the factory has to have a way to connect the glass to power...

Looking at the images a few posts above, I think the heating is the metal tabs sticking up, with the metal connectors. The other is the electrochromic, since it connects across the whole glass. I edited my prior post where I identified the two wires as electrochromic. That's what the black plug is for.

 

Absolutely. I rarely connect or disconnect stuff that is not intended for regular consumers, so I did not identify the "spade connector" (thank you JimmyOneJag), which can be simply unplugged. To my amateur eyes that thing looked like something that possibly requires a special tool or has to be de-soldered. 😲 I am glad I was wrong.