What you want is for them to be only operated manually from inside the vehicle so you can fold them when you need to.

When we are towing the caravan we have to use towing mirrors and if you lock the vehicle with these mirrors attached they hit the windows when the mirrors fold.

Hopefully someone in the U.K. will be able to reprogram it, and also the stop/start

 

“Froze” as in iced up or stopped working because of another issue? I can’t comment on the Defender but in my wife’s previous LR Sport, RR, and LR4 (can’t remember if it had this feature) we’ve never had any issues with the folding mirrors.

Once a bicycle courier smacked the side view mirror while sitting in traffic, which dislodged the mirrored lens and rotated the entire mirror in the opposite direction. The mirror lens got fixed but all of the rest of the units functions worked fine.

My guess is that if you had an obstruction in your mirror like ice build up, and kept trying to open the mirror from a retracted setting, over and over again, you’d eventually break or burnout the motor. As for general durability, I think you’re good.

 

My power folding mirrors are getting tripped up in the ice here in the Pac NW this week -- ice freezes them so the unfold/fold function doesn't work. Yesterday it was a snowpocalypse here -- driver side mirror unfolded. Pass side click click click then stopped. Didn't unfold. No big deal.

I used to worry about it (probably started with a 2010 LR4). My experience is that every LR/RR since 2010 has done this. Never have had one broken, FYI... even though I have expected them to break.

So yes, in this software driven world, JLR should make the functions of mirrors user selectable.

 

That’s good to know. So I’m assuming you can drive with the mirrors in the folded position?

I only ask because if I can’t drive slowly, even a few feet/meters, with the door open, it wouldn’t surprise me if LR defined folded mirrors as unsafe for operation.