Review: MSA Towing Mirrors

MSA TOWING MIRRORS

Swapping out factory mirrors for dedicated towing mirrors can be a very worthwhile exercise for many caravanners and some non-caravan applications too. To explore this further, MSA provided us with a pair of towing mirrors to fit to an Isuzu D-MAX with a service body. Here is our experience.

Why do you need towing mirrors?

Your factory mirrors are designed to help you see behind you based on the width of the car. If you attach something wider than the car, it limits your ability to see behind you. This can be a caravan hitched to the back of a car or a wider canopy/service body mounted on a ute. Towing mirrors simply stick out further than standard to create a wider view behind you.

Wider mirrors reduce blind spots for safer lane changes and provide a generally improved awareness of what is going behind you while travelling forwards or reversing. In simple terms, Australian Design Rules require that the mirrors must allow visibility along the full length of the caravan/trailer at its widest point and a further 20 metres behind.

Why get dedicated towing mirrors?

Clip-on extensions are an affordable and practical answer for the occasional tower. You have the benefit of compact factory mirrors when you are not towing. But the clip-ons must be fitted and adjusted before every trip. Some can also move with vibration, obscure part of the factory mirror and interfere with power-fold operation.

Dedicated, vehicle-specific mirrors replace the factory units and mount directly to the original points. They cost more and require some installation aptitude, but provide a more permanent, tidier solution that can be moved between normal and towing positions in seconds. Buy the exact model for your vehicle and trim, and you may retain the factory electrical functions too.

If you haven't checked it out yet, have a look at our guide to reversing and parking your caravan.

Mirror Selection

Cars are getting fancier with all sorts of functions integrated into the factory mirrors, including power fold, heated lenses, built-in indicators, blind spot monitoring and 360-degree cameras. Therefore, it is important to select the correct replacement mirrors to maintain all that functionality.

The MSA website clearly shows all the mirrors available for a given car and the mirror compatibility features. You could find more than one model that can physically bolt onto your car, but if you choose the wrong one, it may not carry over all your features. The MSA website does not feature a “selection tool” to match the best mirror to your particular trim level of car. Therefore, you need to do a little bit of homework to know all the features of your car so you don’t lose any functionality in the mirrors. For example, I didn’t know this D-MAX had heated mirrors until I investigated. 

Mirror Installation

The mirrors came really well packaged against transit damage and were supplied with nicely presented installation instructions. Unboxing them, it did strike me that they are appreciably heavier than the factory mirrors. In terms of the total weight of the car, it is a tiny percentage. I took it as an indicator of them having been made from robust materials.

Installing the first mirror did require a bit of a learning curve. The tricky bit was removing the interior door trim to access the factory mirror bolts and wiring loom. The actual mounting process was really easy. By the time I got to the second door, it was a picnic.

The installation manual supplied simply says “remove the interior door trims and factory mirrors as per the vehicle manufacturer’s instructions”, which wasn’t particularly helpful. Fortunately, I found plenty of good YouTube videos showing the precise steps for removing the various door trim parts. The process requires equal parts caution and courage. The caution part is paying attention to locating and removing various hidden screws holding the trim in place. The courage part is snap on plastic parts require a fair degree of force to remove them. When you are pulling and levering, it does feel like you are going to break stuff, but at some point, you just have to commit. Plastic trim tools are a big help for applying leverage without scratching the trim.

Once the trim is removed, it is simply a matter of unplugging the electrical connection for the factory mirror and then unbolting it. An assistant to ensure the mirror doesn’t fall on the ground is ideal. Next, the MSA mirror loom is fed through the door opening and the mirror is positioned for bolting on. The loom is a straight plug-and-play with no cutting/soldering, etc.

The instructions specify a torque for tightening the new mirror bolts. I think it is a good idea to grab a torque wrench, as John Ford reported he found his mirror bolts did come loose on his Land Cruiser. Once plugged in and bolted in, it is a good idea to test all the mirror functionality before replacing the door trim – e.g., indicators, power fold and mirror adjustment.

Next, replace the door trim. Be careful to work in the reverse order and put all the screws back in place. The final step for these power fold models is to operate the power function in and out a minimum of three times for synchronisation.

Mirror Features

Some towing mirrors have two lenses which can be a little distracting as you are looking at two images. The MSA has one large single lens which I found very user-friendly. The mirrors have four different positions. Position 1 is the most compact and suitable for everyday driving without towing. Position 2 has the mirror arm slid out and is suggested for towing camper trailers and smaller vans. Position 3 has the mirror arm slid in, but the mirror head rotated 90 degrees to the horizontal position. It is suggested for ute-mounted canopies/service bodies. Position 4 has both the mirror arm slid out and the mirror head rotated 90 degrees to the horizontal position. It provides the widest view and is suggested for wider caravans. 

A really clever feature is when the mirror is rotated to the horizontal position, the vehicle’s standard mirror controller still retains its normal up, down, side-to-side function.

What I found

Importantly, the mirrors have retained all their fancy functionality. And as actual mirrors, they do a great job. I found a couple of benefits for everyday driving. The mirror head sits in the vertical position, which is taller than the factory mirror. I found this helpful for reversing into parking spots because you can see the painted lines for longer into the reversing process.

I also found improved visibility of objects close to me in front of the bonnet. This is because the MSA mirror head sits on an arm protruding slightly out from the car body, creating a small gap to see through. Whereas the factory mirrors are close to the body, creating slightly more vision obstruction. This is handy for parking and four wheel driving, where visibility is critical.

The MSA mirrors have definitely improved visibility down the side of the service body, improving safety. And yes, they are good for towing!