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My buddy told me to 'just use duct tape' on my broken car mirror and I actually did it
So I backed into a pole last Saturday at the grocery store parking lot on Elm Street. Cracked the passenger side mirror housing pretty good. My friend Mike who works at the auto parts shop said just slap some duct tape on it, it'll hold for months. I laughed but then I figured what the heck, I got a six month old roll of gorilla tape in the garage. Taped it up Sunday morning. Drove to work Monday, highway speeds, no problem. Then Tuesday a big gust of wind hit and the whole thing flapped off onto the road behind me. I chased it for two blocks. Has anyone else had duct tape actually hold something long term or am I just bad at applying it?
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rileygarcia2mo ago
That thing about the wind gust hitting it and the whole thing flying off, yeah I had that exact same thing happen with my old Honda Civic. I tried taping a cracked taillight cover back on and it lasted maybe a week before I hit a bump on I-35 and it went bouncing down the median. What actually worked for me was using that black electrical tape wrapped around the whole mirror first to make a base layer, then putting the gorilla tape over that. I also cleaned the surface with rubbing alcohol first and warmed up the tape with my hands before pressing it down. I got about three months out of that setup before I finally swapped the whole mirror.
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christopherh792mo ago
Man, I don't know... you really went all out on that tape job. Like, rubbing alcohol and warming it up with your hands? That sounds like you were trying to fix a space shuttle or something. I get that you wanted it to hold, but three months of looking at a taped-up mirror... I would've just hit up a junkyard or ordered a cheap replacement off eBay for twenty bucks by then. Plus, don't you worry about water getting in behind all that tape and messing up the wiring or something? I'm just saying, sometimes a little duct tape is fine for a week, but people act like it's a permanent solution for bodywork.
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the_parker2mo ago
Duct tape and electrical tape are both just band aids but you're missing the real issue with that honda mirror. Those plastic clips inside the mirror housing get brittle after a few years in the sun and heat, so even if you tape the outside perfectly the whole thing will rattle loose from the vibration. I saw a guy use clear silicone caulk around the edge of his mirror after taping it and that sealed out water way better than any tape alone ever could. He had to cut it off with a razor blade when he finally replaced the mirror but it held for almost a year without issues. Have you ever tried something like that to actually seal the gap?
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