Aero Convex Passenger Side Mirror

My experience has been that Stoddard & NLA parts appear to be coming  from the same company….depending what coast you call from ( or the 1800 # you call… east or west coast)  as  they ship from one of multiple wherehouses they both seem to share.    Years ago they operated separately ( east coast vs west coast)…. But last decade or so years they appear to be interchangeable.   Both are licensed by “P”: and sell a complete catalog of parts, and use the same part numbers.

Sierra Madre (SMC) tends to purchase a significant number of their P car parts ( per my experience) from stoddard/NLA… their parts often come in the stoddard/NLA baggies with their markings on the labels.   On the SMC web, part numbers trend to be the same, with SMC at the beginning of the p/n.

parts I have ordered from Pelican seem to come in bags labeled with either stoddard or NLA labels/barcode stickers.

i tend to chase lowest price for these type of parts or discount coupons/sales from either NLA, Stoddard or SMC…. Depending who has the part in stock when I call.

i have purchased several aero convex  over the years ( mirror only, not full assembly w/ body mount… mostly because of vandalism replacement needs, one because of a rock strike from a truck tire highway incident… I drive my car regularly and leave it parked in public lots/ streets often).   First from NLA, second from Stoddard, third from SMC ( depending on sale coupon and availability)…. All came in the same box with same NLA/Stoddard part number markings.   They all appear to be Chinese made with the German stamped markings….. but work well and chrome has held up well.

hwppy shopping.

@Lfepardo Thanks for the information.

I make and sell a mirror that will work better than the Aero mirror. It mounts to your windshield frame in minutes, doesn't require any  holes to be drilled, is useable with the top up and side curtains on, mounts on the right or left and comes in flat or convex.  There are a few people on this site that are using them who might post a photo of it in its actual position for you..........Bruce

I have posted this before but suffice it to say that I have never felt the need to have a convex passenger side mirror, using this method in all my cars really helps to eliminate the blind spot.

Of course if you have Blind spot avoidance in your DD, you might not need it.

adjust mirrors to eliminate blind spot

@IaM-Ray posted:

I have posted this before but suffice it to say that I have never felt the need to have a convex passenger side mirror, using this method in all my cars really helps to eliminate the blind spot.

Of course if you have Blind spot avoidance in your DD, you might not need it.

Ray, good tip! Most people don't adjust their mirrors the correct way. Having driven a truck for 30 years with no central mirror, I automatically look all the time. I scan every few seconds, both mirrors, gauges, road.

It really annoys me to have the car tell me someone is there when I already know!

I wish I could turn it off, like: auto stop/start, automatic braking, lane departure, adaptive cruise control, rear cross traffic alert, and lane keep assist. Thankfully, I can either not use all of the above or turn them off.

I REALLY wish I could turn off the blind spot thing. I always know where everyone is around me.

I'll echo Danny's comments on the techno-nannies with the exception of active cruise.  I fell in love with it on the recent Tour de Smo'.  The car doesn't steer itself, thank goodness, but it does adjust speed to traffic.

Well, there is a way to turn OFF, the auto start stop, I have done that on two of my VW’s as I got fed up of being at a turn and having to add 1-2 secs for the engine to engage.  Absolutely dangerous IMO.

My new Silverado 1500 diesel monster truck has a lane departure system, but not blind spot monitoring. As a car-guy, I want to hate it... but I just don't. I rather like it. Jeanie's Pacifica has blind-spot monitoring but not lane departure warning, and I find it kind of irritating.

But it is the start/stop systems on anything newer than 2018 that are instruments of evil straight from the pit of hell. My 2018 Transit Connect doesn't have it, but the '22 does.

I have an Autostop Eliminator on the Pacifica and had one on the (now traded) F150 monster truck (lite), both of which came equipped with this idiotic nonsense, but on the Cheby monster truck I need to tear half the dash apart to install the hardware. I'm learning to just mash the stupid delete button every time I start the truck, but it's a hassle I don't want or need in my life.

Mostly, I'd just like a word with whoever thought this was a good idea. Start/stop is proof that "the gubment" (as it's been called here) is staffed by morons. This saves exactly nothing -- the fact that anybody needs this explained to them makes me despair regarding the general intelligence of humanity.

Ask me how I really feel.

$13 on aliexpress …

$89 from a company that actually provides installation literature and a warranty.

Yes of course, it really just needs to trigger the switch so I just needed a circuit that kept the memory but I paid $90 for my suv for the same reasons as you did.  but the $13 works on the other car was a trial and it has been working since March without a hitch…

I guess I'm lucky.  BMW thought to make the nannies disable-able (like my new word?).  In any sport mode the auto-stop is disabled by default and there is a convenient button to turn it off in the other modes.  Lane departure is limited to a configurable steering wheel vibration and blind spot warning is just a small light in the side mirror meant to draw your attention.  Anti-collision braking is easily configured as well.  They haven't completely forgotten that they're building driver's cars.  All in all, not bad.

Hey Stan, how do you really feel?

Lane, I would hope any car with sporting intentions would have a disable for all the CRAP.

I can turn it all off on the Suby, with the exception of blind spot monitoring. The Crosstrek isn't exactly a "sporting conveyance". It is comfy, rides and handles well, though. Overall, we love it.

The annoying thing(and yes I could easily buy/fabricate a bypass) is that you have to disable the auto stop-start "feature" every time you start the car. My wife doesn't want me to disable the start-stop because the car is under warranty still(yeah, yeah, yeah). My hands are tied at this time.

The other REALLY annoying thing is having to disable the automatic braking(which has activated on me three times when there was zero danger of hitting anything). You know when someone is turning right and slows down and you get a little closer to them but there is plenty of room and you know they'll clear the lane so you're fine? That is precisely when the system over-reacts and slams the brakes on. REALLY ANNOYING! This one doesn't have a permanent disable option.

So now, the procedure is get in, brake pedal, push start button on right on the dash, disable start-stop on left by dash light dimmer, reach up by sunroof to disable automatic braking. Every single time I get in.

The good thing is all the other stuff either stays disabled or you simply don't turn it on, ever. Imagine my surprise though on the interstate when I accidentally touched the lane assist button but a) didn't know I turned it on and b) that the car even had the "feature"!

Sorry for the thread drift.

Now, get OFF my lawn, and take your nannies with you!

I'm happy to drive a WRX.  It has so few automatic functions - blind spot, and automatic high beams (if I want it).

Otherwise, it's just me, and that's the way I like.

Well we are committed to keeping our cars until they fall apart hopefully never… or to buy something used if you must to replace them.
the nanny state cars  sold…. go along with the zero meat by 2030 agenda the 15 minute cities etc etc

the now religion

I hear you and agree with you, Danny.  Pam's Outback is very nice in many ways, but its nannies are overly aggressive (e.g., the automatic braking)  and always default to ON DAMMIT! mode.

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We last went shopping for a 'utility' car at the end of 2019, so 2020 model year.

I wanted a bare bones, bottom-feeding econobox for Costco runs, local errands, and freeway droning. It had to be small (or what passes for 'small' today), Japanese, hatchback, and, if at all possible, manual box. And no nanny stuff. None.

The only thing available that checked all those boxes was the absolute base model Suby Impreza. Any Subaru above base had the nannies. Honda, Toyota, and Mazda offered only one hatch each with a stick, and all of those had at least a few nannies. One more plus for the Suby was a handbrake that was still a hand brake, not some unmarked button you search for as the middle pedal goes all the way to the floor on a dark and stormy night.

Apparently, I was just in time. The next year, even the base Impreza got the nannies. (How cost effective could it be to sell only one low-volume model configured differently than the rest of the entire fleet?)

So, I guess I must be driving a very rare car. Like the Speedster, this was the loss-leader stripper model. And just like MY Speedy, it has a two-liter, flat four boxer engine, too.

Maybe I should stop driving it and put it in a barn somewhere. It could be worth six figures some day. I doubt that I'll ever do any extensive modding for track days.

They're only original once.

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I got a 2020 GTI with DSG and no nannies, no lane avoidance except auto start/stop, still have a hand...brake. Got a wire device to get rid of the start stop...  Heaven.  We subsequently got two 2019 vw.. same situations.

My 2018 GTi has stop start.  It really doesn't bother me.  It restarts in the time it takes me to move my foot from the brake to the gas pedal.

It started behaving differently when I got a new battery.

For daily driving I don’t mind the nannies as long as they can be turned of easily.  If I were retired I probably wouldn’t want them, but for us warriors there are still working full-time and driving in or near big city; they can come in handy.

@Marty Grzynkowicz posted:

For daily driving I don’t mind the nannies as long as they can be turned of easily.  If I were retired I probably wouldn’t want them, but for us warriors there are still working full-time and driving in or near big city; they can come in handy.

I don't want to agree with this, but I do.

There are a lot of things competing for my attention as I go from place to place during the work day. The nannies in the Chevy truck are not intrusive -- they're informative. The General must have tuned them to be much less aggressive than the Europeans or Japanese -- I'm not sure the collision avoidance would actually brake enough to avoid a collision, and so the thing Danny describes is a total non-issue in the truck. It's got a lot of blinking lights, and an annunciation, but it doesn't get in the way. The lane departure is the same way -- gentle tug on the wheel and a beep, and that's it. You wanna' wag, it'll tell you you're wagging -- then let you wag.

It's more like a wife in the passenger's seat than "I know better than you" Germanic intrusion.

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Maybe my fear of nannies comes from my aversion to the 'nannies' I do have — that hill-hold thing thats in the Subaru and even in our 2009 MINI.

If you've already learned how to start up a hill, this just messes up your timing and you have to learn all over again. Except that if one of your cars doesn't have it, you're now less smooth in all of them as your muscle memory tries to remember which car it's in.

I think this was the very beginning of car makers trying to fix something that wasn't broken.

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Yeah that's a little different Mitch, but the emergency breaking feature is one safety feature that can be pretty valuable in many situations.  When we're driving our toys, it's full attention and we are looking for the roads less traveled, that's just different from grinding traffic and crazy drivers that are out there.  

@Stan Galat posted:

I don't want to agree with this, but I do.

There are a lot of things competing for my attention as I go from place to place during the work day. The nannies in the Chevy truck are not intrusive -- they're informative. The General must have tuned them to be much less aggressive than the Europeans or Japanese -- I'm not sure the collision avoidance would actually brake enough to avoid a collision, and so the thing Danny describes is a total non-issue in the truck. It's got a lot of blinking lights, and an annunciation, but it doesn't get in the way. The lane departure is the same way -- gentle tug on the wheel and a beep, and that's it. You wanna' wag, it'll tell you you're wagging -- then let you wag.

It's more like a wife in the passenger's seat than "I know better than you" Germanic intrusion.

Lane centering technology doesn't always work the way you want it to:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada...y-accident-1.7381163

I can do without it.

I'm very glad none of my cars - even the Outback - have lane centering.  In both nannyfied cars, all they do is "...tell you you're wagging -- then let you wag."  Having the car pull you back in your lane would be dangerous if you're moving over to get by a cyclist.

Anyway, my lane centering technology rides in the passenger seat, and she's hard to ignore...

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A somewhat related YouTube rant from UK autojourno, former magazine editor, and gentleman farmer Harry Metcalfe, on how mandated tech is wrecking the performance car market. Somewhat long, but he gets to the meat of it in the first eight minutes or so.

You'll notice from his stable of cars that Harry lives in a different world than most of us, but what we've been whining about here is shaking all corners of the auto industry and in the process producing cars that car dudes just don't want.

He notes that, in Europe at least, upcoming regulation is forcing Porsche to abandon the 718 Boxster/Cayman because some of its core technology is too old to bring into compliance at reasonable costs.

He also explains that one of the main reasons for electric steering was to make auto lane correction possible as car makers understood this tech would eventually be required by changing regulation. (Remember how we were told it was mainly for better fuel economy).

Anyway, here's a glimpse into what life looks like from the other side of the tracks:

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Harry's Garage and Ian Tyrell's youtube channels are two of my faves.

I was under the impression that electric power steering was to eliminate the weight of hydraulics/pump/steering rack and parasitic draw of the pump. So economy/mpg was supposed to be the original reasoning.

But yes I can see where they were going with the computer-controlled steering.

Certainly a stepper motor and a circuit board are lighter?

I do remember the "feel" issue. The first cars with electric power steering were described as dead, wooden, and "no feel".

@DannyP posted:

I was under the impression that electric power steering was to eliminate the weight of hydraulics/pump/steering rack and parasitic draw of the pump. So economy/mpg was supposed to be the original reasoning.

But yes I can see where they were going with the computer-controlled steering.

Yeah, that's how they sold it. I never bought any of it. It was obvious from the get-go that the MPG argument was bogus -- there's no energy (fuel) savings driving anything with electricity over a straight mechanical connection, unless the thing we're talking about can be shut off, and power steering is always on.

Electricity isn't magic, it comes from somewhere, and that somewhere is the alternator, which is driven by the engine, which is burning fuel. More electric goo-gaws mean a bigger alternator and battery, with all the parasitic losses involved.

As you know, in a traditional system the engine drives a power steering pump which makes a fluid connection to the rack. With an electric system, the engine drives an alternator, which charges the battery, which powers the stepper motor, which helps the rack steer the car. You can't get more out of something than you put into it, and power steering is always active.

Making the system "save fuel" would mean that we've invented a perpetual motion machine. The conservation of energy is a thing.

The end game was always a push towards some level of autonomy.

Regarding the "feel" -- I divide vehicles into two clean classes: fun cars and work mules. Keeping the classes clean makes dealing with them much easier. In a fun car, I want as close to an analog experience as I can tolerate. I like driving the Speedster because it has no power-steering, no power-brakes, no automatic transmission. I give the car inputs based on its feedback, and the whole thing is enjoyable.

It is not a work mule, though. My work mules have a job to do. Jeanie's minivan moves little people around conveniently and comfortably. They watch movies in the back, play games on screens, and everybody in the vehicle can travel for hours and hours and hours on end without feeling like the car is fighting. I can easily drive it to Denver (1000 mi.) and arrive happy and ready to rock. I couldn't care less about "feel" in the minivan, unless what we're talking about is isolation (or a lack of feel), in which case I'm a fan. That minivan is a floating living room, with "float" being a positive adjective in this case.

Electric racks and all manner of electronic frippery do not diminish this experience they enhance the primary objective. As a point of fact -- when the infotainment system glitches, and we can no longer watch Wreck It Ralph on the screens in back, there is a near-mutiny.

My monster-truck is a work space. I'm not looking to find the apex in any bend -- but I really like that the truck senses that there's a trailer back there and tailors the shift-map, etc. for it. Backing up to a trailer to hitch it is a complete non-event with a nice backup camera. I still use my mirrors to back (van, truck, or truck/trailer), but Jeanie uses the backup camera anytime she's backing out of anywhere. It's pretty nice.

Do I worry that all this stuff will break? Absolutely. Do I think any of it belongs on a sportscar? Absolutely not. Do I want my work mules to behave a little bit like a sportscar? Not really -- I have one of those. I mostly just want it not to break, and to do what it's supposed to do.

Vehicles have different purposes. When we ask them to do things they aren't good at, we get Lamborghinis with automatic transmissions and electric steering.

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Another thing he brings up that I hadn't heard about before is the looming change to European car regs concerning 'cybersecurity'.

Apparently, now that cars are so completely controlled by computers, hacking into them has become a thing. It's theoretically possible to gain control of a car remotely and besides just breaking into it or stealing it, bad guys could seize control of a moving car and play with the steering, power, or brakes.

So, you're cruising down the autobahn at 300 km/h, some dude comes up from behind, and instead of just flashing his lights, he hacks into your ride and steers you out of his way. I tell ya, I don't get no respect.

To prevent that, a whole new wave of car regulation is coming in Europe that would add even more hoops for car makers to jump through, further complicating the layers of tech on a car and thus adding even more to the cost.

More black boxes, more stuff you can't fix with a wrench, more stuff that will be 'unsupported' when a car reaches a certain age, and more stuff that even dudes like Rod Emory or Iain Tyrrell will have no answers for.

Our lawn mower powered cars are looking better every day.

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@Sacto Mitch posted:

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Another thing he brings up that I hadn't heard about before is the looming change to European car regs concerning 'cybersecurity'.

Apparently, now that cars are so completely controlled by computers, hacking into them has become a thing. It's theoretically possible to gain control of a car remotely and besides just breaking into it or stealing it, bad guys could seize control of a moving car and play with the steering, power, or brakes.

So, you're cruising down the autobahn at 300 km/h, some dude comes up from behind, and instead of just flashing his lights, he hacks into your ride and steers you out of his way. I tell ya, I don't get no respect.

To prevent that, a whole new wave of car regulation is coming in Europe that would add even more hoops for car makers to jump through, further complicating the layers of tech on a car and thus adding even more to the cost.

More black boxes, more stuff you can't fix with a wrench, more stuff that will be 'unsupported' when a car reaches a certain age, and more stuff that even dudes like Rod Emory or Iain Tyrrell will have no answers for.

Our lawn mower powered cars are looking better every day.

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This forced technology invasion is absolutely everywhere though, not just your car. We accept some small level of technological conveniences as consumers, the rest of the "advancements" are forced upon us as a means of either planned obsolescence, to keep us brand "loyal", or as a fix to the substandard offering brought to market without being fully sorted.

The true issue we have is that those making government policy have lost true north and feel completely entitled to help us poor sods, who obviously have no ability to self govern, and think for ourselves, we need policies and laws to protect us.  These agencies want to make sure every aspect of life is controlled by them of course.  Unfortunately, the more we go on the more we realize that the agencies are staffed with low achievers and those with an IQ of 2 decimal place.  How else can you make decisions that are completely devoid of any common sense and are simply based on an ideology

@Sacto Mitch posted:

Our lawn mower powered cars are looking better every day.

Part of the engine merry-go-round is that (LORD willing) a stout and torquey T1 should land in the back of the bus by this time next year, completing the stable.

The limo was the odd man out, which is tragic -- but Speedster, '64 panel, monster-truck, minivan sounds pretty ideal for this time of my life.

The next one to move on will likely be the white '18 Transit Connect service van.

I'm really sorry to disagree with all you guys. But I do.

All these gadgets of frippery do is allow all of us to lose skill. I don't care if they are in a big-rig truck, a minivan, or a sporty car.

It used to be that it took attention and skill to drive, whether for personal business or commercially. These gadgets slowly erode both the skill and attention needed to operate them.

To be clear, I'm not talking about handling and feel here. I'm talking about the slow and steady dumbing-down of driving skill. Because as the prevalence of these doo-dads continues to increase the general public will rely on them more and more. And the skill level will just continue to decline. The attention span gets shorter. Because it can.

All because the technology will "save" us from ourselves.

@DannyP posted:

I'm really sorry to disagree with all you guys. But I do.

I can appreciate that. I feel that in my bones

... but the frippery is here (right now), and I can either rage against it or come to terms with it. I'm not looking for more whatnot on my vehicles, and I'll never shop for this stuff or pay extra for it -- but it's here. The car makers aren't going back.

I know the tech is here to stay. I just lament the loss of skill/attention.

@DannyP posted:

I'm really sorry to disagree with all you guys. But I do.

All these gadgets of frippery do is allow all of us to lose skill. I don't care if they are in a big-rig truck, a minivan, or a sporty car.

It used to be that it took attention and skill to drive, whether for personal business or commercially. These gadgets slowly erode both the skill and attention needed to operate them.

To be clear, I'm not talking about handling and feel here. I'm talking about the slow and steady dumbing-down of driving skill. Because as the prevalence of these doo-dads continues to increase the general public will rely on them more and more. And the skill level will just continue to decline. The attention span gets shorter. Because it can.

All because the technology will "save" us from ourselves.

100% 👍

Combine that declining skill level with the automatic gearboxes that are now almost mandatory, EVs that also drive like an automatic, and a dashboard full of non-essential distractions and entertainment, and it's a recipe for disaster. You've got vast swathes of motorists driving cars like they're super quick bumper cars, while distracted by all the electronic devices we can muster.

It's only the fact that car safety has improved exponentially that is keeping the death toll suppressed.

I am amazed they allow a TV set to be mounted in the dash of many modern cars !

OK it not really a TV but its the same idea  and distracts the driver by taking his eyes off the road .....

PS , I  wonder if anyone has hacked the dash monitors / TVs to  play movies etc thru bluetooth ?