Mirror removal - 2008 Hyundai Accent

[GasSavers_maximilian]

Yesterday I removed my passenger side mirror and I figured I'd share a couple tips that could save a bit of time (or at least a bit of exploration) if you own the same vehicle. Whether or not it's worth it I'll leave to you to decide. This is for manual (unpowered) mirrors.

1) Roll down the window and use a putty knife to gently pry off the inside covering that the control arm is poking through. This can be done without harming anything pretty easily.

2) Now you should see three bolts. It is possible to remove them without taking the inside door panel off, but it's tedious. Here's how I did it:

a) The top bolt can be reached with a socket wrench, so leave it for the moment. Having one tight bolt will keep things from jiggling.
b) Use a fixed 10mm wrench (adjustable wrenches and sockets won't fit) to loosen the lower two bolts. One of the bolts is accessible with a philips head screwdriver (bolts have philips recesses in them). The other will be slow going owing to the close quarters, with only a small fraction of a turn being possible before repositioning the wrench. Just get them loose for now, don't remove them.
c) Once they are loose, use a magnetic retrieval tool (or magnetized screwdriver, etc.) to ensure you don't drop the bolts and washers down into the door. Then slowly back them off the last little bit. I suppose you could do this by just being super careful or using a pair of needle nose pliers, but it's a pretty tight fit. If you have any child labor at your disposal, their small hands would come in useful at this stage.
d) Now use a 10mm socket to remove the upper bolt. The mirror won't crash to the ground or anything as it's retained by a one-way plastic clip.

3) Remove the philips head screw holding on the plastic one-way clip. The mirror shouldn't fall out, but be careful.

4) Gently guide the control arm back through the hole in the frame and remove the mirror.

You now have an unsightly recess where the mirror was, a hole that noise and weather can come through, and an aerodynamically bad transition. You're on your own for covering it in an attractive, smooth fashion. I'll let you know what I wind up doing. You can put the inside cover back on if you want, of course. Plugging the hole the control arm went through shouldn't be too difficult. Some extra foam in there to deaden noise is probably a good idea.