Sunday, March 25, 2018

Jeep Grand Cherokee Summit 2014 passenger side mirror change

Change mirror yourself in 30 minutes

Things you need

  • Philips driver size 4
  • 8mm hex head
  • pry tool of any sorts
  • new mirror
  • one beer

Things you don't need

  • Nagging wife/girlfriend
  • Stupid advice to go to dealer or mechanic

How it all began

So I got myself a used JGC 2014 Summit package. I think it was damage before in some storm or something but the fact was that I had a "lower class" mirror on the passenger side. That mirror was heated and motorized glass was there, but Summit has car detection and folding mirrors on both sides. So after some investigation, I found out that the mirror like would cost an arm and a leg or simply speaking around 700 $ to be installed by your "professional dealer". 
Long story - short. I got it for 215$ of eBay. Same trim, great condition.

Now the fun part

Got my pry tool to be absolutely as much as possible gentle with the leather interior and plastics on the door. Good plastic prying tool doesn't leave any marks or dents and is better than a screwdriver.

Start by removing glass and door lock controller.  There's no magic around it just pry and pull. Its held by 4 metal expanding latches.Disconnect the cable.

After this is out and safely placed somewhere where you won't lose it you can start removing two very important screws. Look inside the door's armrest, you will see a small plastic square cap in there. Pry it open and there's a Philips screw hidden under it. Use Philips screwdriver to unscrew it.


Look behind the door unlock handle, there's another plastic panel that you have to remove. Behind it there will be 2 screws. Remove ONLY Philips screw.


 Now when we are done with all the secret spaces we can proceed to remove the door trim. Luckily for me, Jeep didn't invest much energy into making those doors invincible. So you can simply pull on the trim and go around the perimeter starting at the bottom and move your way up towards glass. Remember to slide out the door trim out of the door handle. But you will get it if you're patient. Now when the trim is removed don't pull on it, there are still 2 connectors connected. One for light and one for the speaker. Remove to disconnect those before pulling the door trim and setting it aside.






Now you got major part removed but surprise surprise. Your mirror is actually held by 3 hex nuts that are hidden behind a front speaker. So now we need to remove a decorative plastic that is holding speaker and goes around the window. Plastic trim is held by two plastic pins and is snapped on the metal frame. Also, you need to disconnect the speaker cable. 






So finally you got access to screws that hold the mirror. 3 hex nuts unscrew using 8mm head. Disconnect controller cables of your mirror and you can relax about the mirror falling out because engineers designed a cute little hook that holds it in place so it wouldn't fall out.



 That's it folks

Put a new mirror in, connect the controller. Check if everything works and read this blog backward to assemble your door. I know this reading is quite long, but it takes literally half an hour of your time to do everything.