Kool Vue Mirror

• Performance
• Ease of Use / Installation
• Quality
• Price

• 4
• 5
• 4
• 5

Driving without car mirrors is a felony. But more than just having an aversion to breaking the law, you should also consider how a car mirror could save you from accidents on the road. Collisions and other road hazards usually happen because of blind spots. You can reduce your chances of backing up to a post--or worse, a person--when you have the right car mirrors installed on your automobile. For purposes of determining which brand is best for the job, we tested a Kool Vue mirror on the passenger side of our 2005 Toyota Corolla. And this is what we found out.

Features

• OE-comparable
• Passenger side
• With textured plastic cap
• Manual folding
• With heating function
• Primered finish
• Non-extendable
• With 10-hole, 5-prong connector

What we liked

• It has all the basic features a driver needs. Granted, it lacks all the nifty stuff to have in a car mirror (puddle lights, auto-dimming features, and signal lights), but this Kool Vue mirror that we installed on our Toyota Corolla shows that you don't need all the bells and whistles to have a decent, working side-view mirror for your car.
• For a price that's not even one fourth of the dealership cost, this mirror assembly is such a great steal that it's almost a sin. Our guilt-free, bargain-hunting selves drove happily down the highway, watching the scenery go past us through our newly installed mirror.
• Its heating function works instantaneously. Our 2005 Corolla was covered with a light dusting of snow upon testing. Although the entire mirror assembly was not heavily swathed, it did a good and quick job of preventing the mirror glass from fogging.
• Installing this mirror was easy. Wirings for the mirror were not as complicated as they seem. The job was completed in under an hour despite having to remove the door panel on our Corolla.

What we didn't like

• Manual folding was a bit challenging in cold weather. An automatic-folding feature would have been great.
• The plastic housing looked, well, very much like plastic. The textured surface of the mirror's housing was a dead giveaway to its value.

Our final say

Despite its synthetic look and lack of modern accouterments found in most car mirrors, the Kool Vue mirror offers great value for those who are looking for a basic car mirror for their vehicles.