Help needed please I have a problem with my driver side mirror when I got the car it had a stick on mirror stuck over a broken glass and the mirror has the flip back problem when you try and fold it in.

I am going to take the housing off to check the micro switch so thought I would change the mirror while I was at it my question is does any one know how the retaining ring is attached to the mirror back plate? The new one has a back plate on it that looks like it locates on 4 lugs my thought was that with the housing off I may be able to unclip the existing one and fit the new one without pulling the retaining ring off the motor and damaging its clips. Does it slide up or down and then pull off? Or is it more complicated than that?

Well I can answer my own question here with the housing cover off the mirror it is a simple job to swop the broken mirror out without having to pry anything off and no clips to remove.
You just angle it away from the housing at the top so its at about 30 degrees give the mirror a sharp tug upwards and it slides of the lugs dead easy. line the new one up on the retainers and give a quick press downwards and it clips in place takes a couple of minutes and no broken clips.

There is a howto in the wiki  .
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I did find one but it involved prising the ring off the motor and advised having a spare handy due to clips breaking. Much easier to remove the cover and slide it off the holder.