Suma Performance blind spot mirrors: think twice before buying

[BasedGod]

Let me start by saying this is not a hit piece or an attempt to get back at Suma over a negative customer service experience. I just want to share my experience with these mirrors. I do like them, but with some major caveats, and if I had known what I know now, I might not have purchased them at all.

I have never posted on a forum before, but after realizing that almost all of the reviews and content about these mirrors came from people who received them for free in exchange for reviews, I felt the need to say something. While this is a common practice and not inherently unethical, I personally find it distasteful and think it can influence people to give more positive reviews or at least be less critical of the product and given that all of the reviews I have seen of these mirrors are overwhelmingly positive, I wanted to give a completely unbiased review.

Ok, now for the mirrors themselves, I'll start with discussing the negatives first, because prior to the modifications I made to them, I found them to be worse than the OEM mirrors.

Cons:
1. The mirror in their stock configuration, do not offer any real usable FOV increase.

As shipped, the mirrors are angled in a way that causes the side of the truck to take up like half of the mirror, even when they're adjusted as far outward as possible.​

As you can see, while there’s technically a field of view increase, it’s basically useless in my opinion because it mostly just increases my view of the truck itself. These mirrors are marketed as improving blind spot visibility, and in stock form they really don’t do that much at all.​

I reached out to Suma because it was so bad that I thought there had to be a mistake or something wrong with my mirrors. They told me this is how they’re designed, which I honestly don’t believe. There’s no way someone intentionally designed a side view mirror to be only about 50% usable.​

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2. Less adjustment travel than OEM mirrors.​

The main issue with these mirrors, which I’ll explain more below, is that the mirror frame is noticeably thicker than the OEM mirror frame. By itself that wouldn’t necessarily be a problem, but I believe it limits the adjustment travel quite a bit.​

Because of the thicker frame, the Suma mirror makes contact with the inner mirror housing much sooner than the OEM mirror does. This restriction seems to be the main reason the mirror can’t be angled outward enough and is a major contributor to the poor viewing angle.​

Below is a picture where you can hopefully see the height difference between the mirror frames.​

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3. Worse build quality (IMO) than OEM.​

I’m not a mirror expert, so I could be wrong here, but the Suma mirrors seem to have worse build quality than the OEM ones:​

• The heating element on the Suma's don't cover as much of the mirror as OEM
  
  
  
  My guess is that Suma uses the same heating element for mirrors with and without integrated turn signals to save money. If that’s the case thats a really crappy cost savings measure. Also the heating element on the Suma appears to be poorly adhered to the glass in some places and is bubbling up (see under the connection nub thing.)
  
  
• The Suma Mirror is translucent. (Picture bellow is with a modified mirror frame, not in installed into the mirror housing)
  
  
  
  The Suma mirror doesn’t have the typical gray backing that most mirrors have, including the OEM Tacoma mirrors. It almost looks like it just has a reflective tint applied to it. I didn’t try to scratch or pick at it to confirm because I didn’t want to damage it.
  
  I don’t think this would be an issue under normal use unless you modify the mirror frame like I did. That said, I do think there’s a chance light could get into the mirror housing at the right angle and mess with the image. This is just speculation. In the picture I’m intentionally holding it up to the light to exaggerate the effect.
  

4. Risk of damaging OEM mirrors and housing during install.
Your experience may vary, and you might be able to install these without breaking anything, but there are a couple things working against you.

• The plastic on the OEM mirror housing, shown circled below, is extremely fragile. I broke a couple of the retention clips removing the mirrors. That’s not Suma’s fault, but it’s definitely something to consider.
  
  
  
  
• The heating element connections on the OEM mirrors are also very fragile. They’re only held on with silicone, and the OEM connectors are extremely tight. That makes them very difficult to remove without damaging the small metal nubs. Even on the second mirror, where I was being extra careful, I still damaged the nubs removing the connections, as shown below. Again, this isn’t Suma’s fault, but it’s something to be aware of.
  
  
  
  Overall, install results may vary, but there’s a real chance you could permanently damage the OEM mirrors, especially the heating elements. That’s the main reason I decided to continue with the Suma install instead of going back, since I didn’t want to reinstall damaged OEM mirrors.
  

5. Minor Cons

• The blue mirrors are extremely dark when paired with tinted windows. This isn’t Suma’s fault, its on me for not thinking about it beforehand, but there was no mention of it anywhere from Suma or in reviews, so it never crossed my mind. It’s not a defect, just something to consider before choosing the blue option.
  
  
• The convex shape also takes some getting used to. They’re very convex, and at first it almost feels like wearing glasses with the wrong prescription. It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust. It’s getting better over time, but it’s worth mentioning.

Modifications:
Before showing the final results, I’ll explain the modification I made.

After damaging the OEM heating elements, I was basically committed to making the Suma mirrors work, since I didn’t want to reinstall damaged OEM mirrors. After inspecting both mirrors more closely, I suspected, correctly, that the poor viewing angle was caused by the thicker Suma frame limiting how far outward the mirror could adjust.

I removed the mirror glass from both frames and installed the Suma mirror into the OEM frame. This completely fixed the viewing angle issue, but there are some things to consider.

1. The OEM frame has to be permanently modified.
The blind spot monitor indicators are in different locations. To fit the Suma mirror into the OEM frame, you have to cut plastic out of the frame. It’s not difficult, but it is permanent.

I didn’t take pictures during the modification, and I don’t want to remove the mirrors again. You can still see in the picture below that the blind spot monitor lights are in different spots.

The modification itself is straightforward, but you need to be careful removing the mirror from the frame. The OEM frame is much tighter than the Suma frame, and I actually shattered the first OEM mirror.

Lightly heating the frame with a hair dryer or heat gun might help. If you take your time and work around the edges slowly, it can be done.

Final Results:

As you can see, the Suma mirror installed in the OEM frame is vastly better in terms of actual usable view compared to how it ships from Suma.

The last photo was taken on a different day and in different lighting, but you can clearly see that the truck takes up much less space in the mirror than before. I wouldn’t compare the exact position of the vehicle next to me between photos since neither car is in the same exact spot. Just take my word for it that the modified setup lets the mirror angle much farther outward and actually provides a meaningful increase in field of view and blind spot visibility.

Final thoughts.
Prior to the modifications I made, I honestly wouldn't have considered the mirrors usable and had I not damaged my OEM mirrors during the install I would have returned them.

With the modifications made I'm pretty satisfied with them overall, I might not have gone with the blue mirrors since they are too dark with my tint, but I can live with it.

I'm a little dissatisfied with the heating element on the Suma's, I think the heating element not extending all the way out like the original is a really crappy cost cutting measure, I haven't had to deal with any frost on my windows this winter so I cant speak to their performance but I would imagine the side of the mirror without it would take longer to thaw without the heating element but thats purely speculative but I think its a reasonable assumption.

I also have some concerns about the longevity of the heating element, since it its already bubbling up on the mirrors from poor adhesion, I suspect that over time moisture will be able to work its way into there and degrade the adhesive around the bubbles and potentially peal off portions of the heating element. Again this is purely speculation but it seems reasonable to me. I'm sure they didn't expect someone to take their mirrors apart and felt they probably could cut cost in this area nobody would ever see.

Knowing what I know now, I probably wouldn't have bought them. I don't know what something like this would typically cost, but for $240 MSRP before taxes, given the amount of work I had to do to make it useable (for me), paired with the damage I did to my OEM mirrors and mirror housing, I don't think they are worth it.

I think it's a great concept and really liked the idea, it just seems very poorly executed to me. If Suma could simply put the mirrors into a thinner frame that permits the same amount of adjustment travel as the OEM mirrors then it would solve the biggest issue I have with these.

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[theDLR]

i wonder how they compare to the Aspire ones, those are the ones i've gotten. Some of your points do parallel, but I already see that there are definitely big differences between the two, the major one being having to cut something. There was no cutting with the aspire ones. And the whole bubbling thing that's some QC fail. Luckily the aspire ones in my set don't have that. Being priced the same, I'd want to at least say they'd be close in terms of quality that you get.

Pulling off the main cover i think that's the same for all and I think the biggest issue there is really the 2 brands explaining how to do it well and/or giving some more descriptive detail or tooling you can use to make things easier. After popping one off and it flying to the ground i ended up knicking one of mine. After I learned where all the points were. I finally figured to use 2 little plastic pry tools and followed the bottom line of the cover wedginng one after the other to step and pop those clips out.

The darkness with tint is definitely something I didin't forsee as well. luckily my eyes have gotten used to it as well as the super wide view I now have. Plus i also have a wide view rear view mirror, so after installing sides and rear view, my eyes definitely needed some time getting used to the orientation. So seems like how convex the lenses are between the two seem significant. I initially bought them to be able to see parking lines, which they worked out in doing so. since i suck at parking.

All in all so far from everything that i've installed on my car, my biggest gripe from the makers of all these parts is really the installation intruction details. Many have been very vague and/or seem to skip over steps/detail that made me go "if i had known that during that part of the step, it would of been 10x easier and less frustrating.

Some brands have only a video, some have some vague pdf instructions. And for people who fall into the category of I can DIY it, show me some detail and no problem, but if i've gotta figure XYZ out, i imagine someone less savvy would be having a way harder time.

Final thought for at least for mirrors specifically, if it doesn't work for someone in general, I'd consider a return. The last thing i'd want is something like this which should be adding to the safety of the truck being the opposite and increasing accident risk.