Using Mounting Tape for Automotive Mirror Fixing

It goes without saying that car mirror glass should always be fitted and secured properly. While the mirrors can often be a forgotten and ignored part of the vehicle, they’re obviously there for a reason. Drivers need their wing mirrors for safety and manoeuvrability, which is why the mirror glass needs to remain secure at all times. Therefore, it’s important that body shops know how to provide a quick-fix solution for customers requiring automotive mirror fixing.

Mirrors can easily become damaged while parking or driving in busy or tight areas, but luckily this often only affects the glass. In this guide, we’ll explain how to use our bestselling heavy-duty double-sided mirror mounting tape to replace the mirror glass and give you all the best tips and tricks to get the best adhesion.

Best Tape for Car Mirror Mounting

At JTAPE, we have a range of automotive tapes suitable for a wide variety of applications. When it comes to car mirror mounting, we recommend our High Strength Acrylic Tape, which we’ll explain in more detail below.

High Strength Acrylic Tape

Our JTAPE High Strength Acrylic Tape benefits from excellent resistance to solvents, chemicals, UV, and heat, meaning it can easily bond to a huge variety of substrates without any issues. From car mirror mounting to attaching number plates, this high strength double-sided tape will provide a durable fixing for many materials on car exteriors and interiors.

How to Safely Remove Wing Mirror Glass

Removing glass as safely as possible is always important, and this becomes even more of a necessity when the glass is broken. If the mirror is still in one or two larger pieces, you can use a plastic pry bar to pull the glass forwards. Once it’s far enough forwards, you should be able to reach behind with your fingers and carefully remove the pieces of glass from the clips.

If the glass has shattered into smaller pieces, it’s usually best to remove these one by one using tweezers. Be sure to wear protective gloves throughout this process if you’re picking up glass by hand.

In some cases, you might encounter some wiring on the back of the glass if the car has built-in signals or heat mechanisms. These can be unplugged before marking what they are and where they should go.

How to Tape Mirror Glass on a Car

When taping mirror glass into the car side mirrors, you’ll want to ensure that the adhesion is strong and won’t be affected by any external elements, such as the weather. Since our JTAPE High Tack Acrylic Tape is resistant to so many elements, it acts as the best tape solution for this purpose.

In this section, we’ll guide you through the three simple steps on how to use it to successfully mount an automotive mirror.

1.     Clean the backing plate

The tape will need a clean, dirt-free surface to provide you with the smoothest possible application. Using a cloth and exterior car cleaning solution, gently rub away any remaining adhesive or dirt from the backing plate on the side mirror. Ensure this is completely dry before moving onto the next step.

2.     Apply High Strength Acrylic Tape to the backing plate

Apply a few pieces of tape to cover the backing plate (the number of pieces will depend on the size of the side mirror), pressing these down firmly as you go. Once you’re happy that you have enough, you can remove the protective release liner and reveal the other side of the adhesive. This is now ready for you to stick the mirror onto.

Carefully line up the glass inside the side mirror and ensure everything looks right before firmly pressing this into the backing.

3.     Ensure your fixing is secure

Once the glass is in place, you shouldn’t be able to easily pull this away with your fingers. Ensure this is the case before using a clean cloth to wipe away any fingerprints or smudges on the glass.

Attaching Blind Spot Mirrors to a Car Using Tape

Customers can also request to fix blind spot mirrors in addition to their original side mirrors. These smaller, round mirrors give drivers a better view of their surroundings and help prevent avoidable accidents in blind spots.

Attaching blind spot mirrors is just as easy as applying the glass for the rest of the mirror. The only difference is that it’s often easier to apply the tape directly onto the back of the mirror and fix it into place this way. It’s still important to ensure the surface you’re adhering it to is clean, since this will help it stick in place much more easily.

The main thing to think about when installing these additional mirrors is their placement. It’s usually best to stick these to one corner of the mirror so that the rest of the glass remains visible.

We hope this guide helps you provide this repair service to your customers quickly and efficiently. Whether the glass is completely cracked or partially damaged, our car mounting tape should provide the perfect solution for replacing it. Head to our product page to discover more.