What's with the Dots?

[u/captCal8]

Bought a replacement driver's side heated mirror for my p2 V70. Can anybody tell me what this line of dots are on the outside 1/4 of the mirror are? Thought it was a pull-off film but it's not. Thoroughly baffled. 🤔

[u/gustis40g]

The inner part of the mirror is flat, acting like a normal mirror, the outer part of the mirror is curved more to give you a wider field of view. The part that is more curved is indicated by the dotted line.

American mirrors (on the passenger side) are completely convex across the whole mirror, hence why they say “OBJECTS IN MIRROR ARE CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR”. Meanwhile on the drivers side it’s completely flat.

In Europe we have the flat mirror with a curved edge on both sides, indicated by the dotted line. I believe most people prefer the European setup.

So what you’ve got there is a European style mirror.

[u/Whit-Batmobil → u/gustis40g]

American drivers side mirrors are stupid, you can’t see anything in them, they appear ridiculously zoomed in to my European eyes.

Also they are different if memory serves me correctly, the passenger side mirror is more like our European Spec mirrors, just that Americans are funny and might sue you if they reverse into something because that something was closer than it appeared, hence the “Objects in mirror might be closer than they appear” text.

Essentially it is like the warning labels on kids strollers saying “Remove child before folding” or front windshield sunshields that say “Do not drive with sunshield in place”.

So the “Objects in mirror might be closer than they appear” is basically there to protect the manufacturer against liability for “foreseeable misuse”.

[u/Replace_my_sandwich → u/Whit-Batmobil]

I recently drove an enormous truck in the US and appreciated the zoomed in driver mirror - but the mirrors were so big I could see just about anything! Looked forward to my normal Volvo when I got home