My daughter had an encounter with a mailbox during last night's snow storm while driving on a narrow road and trying to avoid head on collision with a car that was coming down the hill toward her. It was a low speed, less than 20MPH but it broke the plastic cover off the back of the passenger mirror.
I checked out the mirror today and all the motors and servos work. The damage is cosmetic only.
So I am shopping for a new cover. The problem is I can only find one in charcoal or grey and her CX-9 is a metallic pearl white.
I found an entire mirror assembly for $85 (free shipping) on ebay and it looks like I can pop the cover off of it and pop it onto her mirror. But I didn't want o spend that much money just to get the plastic piece. So I contacted various dealers. One dealer responded with a $74.99 quote, plus shipping and handling (additional) and at least two weeks because it's backordered.
So I'm thinking just to buy the whole assembly in the right color on ebay (delivery by Dec 15-18) and carefully disassemble it to get the plastic cover off it and pop it on to her car.
What's the consensus about doing this rather than spending possibly more and waiting till January?

 

Welcome to the forum

 

Thank you. We got the Mazda as my daughter's first car (she's 18.)
Curiously, we were looking for another Ford Explorer or a smaller Escape or Subaru, but my wife saw and ad for the CX-9 with 190K miles on it for asking price of $5500.
Now, I've been around a long time. My '58 Chevy Biscayne suffered valve failure at 96K miles. But in 2020 I bought a Silverado pickup with 159K miles on it and it runs good. So I figured, it's a Mazda and they have good reputation for long life, so we went to see it. Well, the car must have racked up that mileage on a dyno, because there was little evidence that it was driven on the road or in any kind of wet weather. I crawled underneath and saw no rust. Mostly plastic and stainless steel undercarriage. Car is immaculate inside and out and everything works. I test drove it and it drove like a car with less than 30K miles on it. Body is tight, no rattles. HVAC, sound system, backup camera all work, as does the power liftgate. I got dealer to take $200 off with cash payment and they took care of registration and insurance and in 3 days my daughter was driving it.
We love the car. My wife's next SUV is likely to be another Mazda. I remember Karl Denninger always sung the praises of his Mazda 6 and made lots of good arguments for buying one. Now I see why. The car is superb quality. High mileage almost doesn't matter. Still feels like a nearly new car.