How you should position your car's wing mirrors

A topic so simple and yet so divisive as it turns out. So how do you adjust your wing mirrors? Well, that depends on who you ask.

There are some hard and fast rules though. You don’t want to limit the field of view of the mirror by pointing it directly at your car’s panels and while clever blind spot tech is great, you should always head check – never rely fully on technology.

For depth of research, I decided to ask the team at carsales how they do it.

The legend that is Timmy Britten has probably adjusted more mirrors than any of us, so we start here, as told by Ken Gratton - because while Tim may be a master at mirror positioning, he’s rubbish at email.

“Adjust the mirrors almost as far outboard as possible to eliminate blind spots, leaving only micro-millimetres of bodywork discernible in the mirror frame.” suggests Timmy (apparently).

While Ken’s personal approach is to adjust them outboard to see cars in your blind spot, adjust them on a narrow spread for backing, and don’t adjust them at all if you drive a Lamborghini Countach. Solid advice, Kenny.

Ken did however follow up with a genius hack. If you have a two-position memory set-up and you’re the only person ever to drive that car you can use one of the stored positions to change the mirrors’ perspective for easier backing at low speeds. Ken’s approach to backing at high speed remains undocumented.

Go-to video bloke Johnny Wilson says “I put the door handle in the bottom corner of the mirror, closest to the car. Then I have perspective on how close things are to my car.”

With a trailer often in tow, boatsales Editor Barry Park pushes them out so that they just clear the rear of the car; the rear vision mirror then covers what’s happening directly behind, a head check covers the blind spot to either side of it and the wing mirrors are primed for merging.

Our senior designer Andrew takes a grid approach which we’re convinced will make perfect sense via a visual representation. “I fill a fourth of the mirror with the butt of my car and [move it] up so I can see some sky.” he says.

Our RV Editor Chris Fincham says “Good question [thanks Fincho]. Is there a technique? Never given much thought to it, although I’m pretty pedantic when it comes to adjusting towing mirrors as there’s a lot more at stake…” He remains our man of mystery.

Alexandra Lawrence is all about cars approaching from behind – it’s a track-based state of mind. “After setting my seat position, I adjust the side mirrors in far enough to see the side of my own car as a starting point, then move them back out until I can’t see my car but can see if one were beside me” says Lawrence.

Our Managing Editor Marton is known for his sage advice. “Adjust your seat position by resting your wrists on the top of the steering wheel then position following vehicles in the centre of both mirrors.” Could it really be that simple?

Farms and Construction Editor, Carene was taught to position the back passenger door handle in the lower left corner of the driver’s side mirror. We’re unsure if the same rules apply behind the wheel of a tractor or combine harvester, where Carene can most often be found.

It will surprise nobody to hear that Senior Journalist Feann Torr likes to see a little bit of himself in his mirror. “I set mine to include about 20 per cent of the car body. Although this reduces lateral vision, it also reduces the blind spot. I do this because as a motorcyclist I’m always used to seeing a bit of my elbow in the mirrors. It’s sort of comforting.” confesses Torr.