A few weeks ago I posted a rant about some dirty filthy stinking hippy who sheared off the drivers side mirror on my car, less than a month after I bought it.

Of course, it probably wasn’t a hippy, they don’t normally drive cars… the odd VW Microbus but those are few and far between.

I spent a week calling around to wreckers to see if anyone had a replacement. No, no, no, no and haha no, really! The mirror is a power/electric mirror so I had to replace it with another. There’s a little speaker in the corner on the inside, so I couldn’t even replace it with a manual one to save a few bucks.

I called a couple Honda dealers and they all quoted me $340 plus $65 for installation. Funny how the price of one is juuuuust a few dollars higher than the standard deductible for comprehensive insurance. When I got that info, I posted another rant about collusion between auto manufacturers and insurance agents.

In the end, I ordered a 3rd party replacement from PartsTrain.com for $34.99 USD. It cost me about $30 in gas to drive out to Sumas, Washington and pick it up from Package Express, the mail-drop that I use for US shipping. I installed the mirror yesterday and it fits and works perfectly. The only difference is it’s black/unpainted. My passenger side mirror is green, the same color as the car so I’ll have to get it painted one of these days. Even if it costs me $100 to get it painted, it’s STILL half the price of buying one from the Honda dealer.

As soon as I pulled away from the curb this morning without having to twist alllll the way around in my seat to see if there was anything coming, I realized just how much I missed having that mirror for the last two weeks.