I backed out of my garage and just caught the very edge of the passenger side mirror on the side of the door opening. The plastic cover on the front side of the mirror was torn off. Is Ford the only option I have for a replacement or are the there any aftermarket options?

 

for a '97 there has too be. try autobodypartsonline.com

 

Soory for the delay in the reply. Are you talking about the glamor cap on the morror.

The glamor cap ( i.e. on XLTs is used to be chrome ) is a seperate item.

It it is color matched, then you order the black one in gel coat and have it painted to match at a body shop.

I ordered the gel coat ones, and painted them black to replace the chrome ones on my truck. Now they have caps that are the same finish as the mirror head itself, so the mirror looks the same over all.

Hope this answers your questions, let us know if you have more.

BTW : www.oemfordparts.com or www.fordpartsonline.com or www.fordpartsnetwork.com

 

It would be the glamour cap as you are describing it; priced it at a local dealer; $25-$30 range.

Did you have a body shop do the painting or did you do it? I was thinking about trying to do it myself but I didn't know if anything special would be involved in painting plastic. If the replacement part was black enough in color, I was even considering putting it on without painting it (cheap aren't I).

I also found that Putco makes a set of chrome (plastic chrome I think) covers. However they will run $75-$85 a pair and from what I can tell are designed to mount over the existing covers which means I would still need to replace the broken one first.

 

If you have smooth painted caps, they are not bad at all, but the paint can run some money. You need primer with flex added, color with flex added, and clear coat with flex added. Take your time and goe slow, no problems what so ever.

If you want to take the short cut, a body shop might do it for what you'd have in paint costs ( SEM is the mfgr that I use ).

The black gel coat is not a good idea to leave out in the sun, it is not created to with stand UV rays is what I am told.

Take a look to be sure you that it is the smooth version, not the one matched to the texture of the remainder of the head, they have both now.

good luck

 

I ended up getting both left and right chrome covers from the dealer. I had originally ordered just the paintable cover for the right side. The local body shop said it could be painted for about $15 the next time something black was being done. However, I got to thinking that would give me a shiny new cover on one side but an old bug covered and slightly scratched cover on the other. So I returned the paintable one to the dealer and got the chromed ones. Price was the same for paintable versus chrome; about $31.50 each.