Towing mirrors - field of view

[mealsonwheels]

With our caravan hitched up to the tow car, our new Milenco flat glass Grand Aero towing mirrors disappointingly give an extremely magnified view, so much in fact that we can't see the side and top of the caravan, as we did in our previous Smat Nord mirrors - only a hugely magnified part of our caravan front.

Should flat mirrors magnify like this or should we have got convex?

 

[RogerL]

Flat glass dosn't magnify - that's what convex mirrors do.

You should be able to see down the side of the caravan and to either side - seeing the front of the caravan is a bit pointless.

 

[mealsonwheels]

Hi RogerL

Our previous mirrors gave us the same type of view as our car mirrors i.e. we could see down each side of the caravan from the bottom to to the top. This is what we were expecting with the flat glass Grand Aero's, but don't have.

We particularly need to see the top of the caravan's nearside, for negotiating a tight sharp right hand bend beside a large barn on our favourite CL and need to check this view to make sure of safe clearance.

The box the mirrors came in says flat glass on it and the glass looks flat, not convex, but they magnify!

I've spoken to someone at Milenco and they say the flat glass mirrors shouldn't magnify, but these do and because I can only see a magnified part of the caravan at any one time, I am unable to use them.

 

[Lutz]

No mirrors should magnify. Flat mirrors should display the objects in the same size, as you would see them with your eyes. In order to increase the field of view, convex mirrors do exactly the opposite and reduce the size of images of objects viewed through the mirror.

 

[Chrisbee]

As your previous mirrors were convex they would have given a greater field of veiw. Because you now have flat mirrors and can see a less you may get the illusion that what you can see is bigger.

Chrisbee

 

[Lutz]

You're probably right, Chrisbee. For an image in a mirror to be magnified, it would have to be concave, not convex, but I've never seen nor heard of a car mirror which is concave.

 

[John_Boy]

Chrisbee is spot on, I had some clip on mirrors until the rubbers perished, having replaced original Milenco mirrors that had rusted and tightening screws snapped. I bought these new Aero mirrors not long after they came out en route to picking up a Caravan in Rhyl. Towing home the 200 odd miles was superb with these mirrors simply because I could see so much behind me on both sides and in real time, and the only thing I could put it down to was the size of the mirror surface relaying a far greater amount of information to my eyes than I had been use to. . . . . . . The trouble is now I find myself spending a little bit too much time looking down the road from where I have been.

 

[mealsonwheels]

Thanks Lutz, Chrisbee and John_Boy for your helpful comments.

We are changing the flat glass for convex and by the sounds of it, that should solve our problem.

 

[freddy2]

You must have flat glass mirrors. the convex mirrors make everything smaller so you see more. I ve got the Milenco Grand Aero mirror in convex. they are by far the best mirror ive ever used and I can see far more than I have ever seen before.

Perhaps the shop will swop them for convex.

 

[Alan Partridge]

Glad it's not just me. I have the "old" Milencos, one flat and one convex. The flat one is next to useless.

 

[mealsonwheels]

We are in the process of exchanging the flat glass for convex. In fact our postie tried to deliver them today, but we were away on SwiftGroups factory visit and will have to collect them from the sorting office tomorrow. Glad to hear we seem to have done the right thing in exchanging them for convex.

 

[mealsonwheels]

Problem solved!

Picked up the Grand Aero convex mirrors from the sorting office this morning, fitted them and collected the caravan from storage, for a trip this weekend. Perfect! Field of view is just right and we see down each side of the caravan from bottom to top again.

Very special thanks to Neil at The Caravan Shop, Glasgow for bearing with us and exchanging the flat glass for convex. His patience and help in finally getting our problem sorted is much appreciated and we thoroughly recommend them.

 

[nigel_374240528]

Hi everyone

This is Nigel from Milenco Limited.

It seems to us everyone has a different opinion about convex or flat. So we offer both in all our ranges of mirrors.

Ten years ago we sold 85% flat 15% convex. Now its 60/40 but most people seem to prefer flat.

Our advice is if you can, ask if you can try them first to decide what you prefer.