After some research I have found that the heating element is wired hot when the ignition is on, no switch or toggle to activate it. You'll see that others have commented on this.

Just for an update I ordered a set of power, teloscoping, heated, turn signal mirrors with an arrival date of tomarrow. can't wait to get them installed, looks like a another weekend project. I give another update after I get them installed.

 

I believe that Ford wires them hot whenever the ignition is on - there is no switch. What year F350? 2002 was the first yr of heated mirrors as far as I know.

 

Mine is a 2001 but it definitely has the heat emblems on the mirrors as well as the wires are visible behind the mirror itself.

 

SLE, I hoping to be finishing up my mirror upgrade tomorrow. I found a new set of OEM Ford heated-lighted mirrors on another web site for $300 delivered (which is a very good price) Just my luck, good old UPS managed to damage both of them in transit, so I had to send them back for a refund. I didn't want to risk allowing the UPS gorilla ruining another set, so I just had my dealer get a set for me. The price was slightly higher...$477.00. Oh well at least I knew they weren't going to be broken.

Anyway along with the mirror upgrade I'm adding the Ford OEM fog lights. I was going to buy a OEM headlight-fog light switch and just wire the mirror heat up to the ignition, but decided against both I've been having a blast with all of the wiring.

So far I have 3 days of time invested in this project, and it is looking GOOD!

I decided to put all of the accessories on separate switches, and I didn't want to drill holes in the dash or use cheesy toggle switches so I had to find a switch box, and build a mounting bracket. (The newly built bracket mounts to the rear of my AIC bracket, and the switch box covers 90% of the AIC wiring harness) Finally found the perfect switches from a fellow in Alaska, hopefully they will arrive tomorrow. I had a friend of mine locate a piece of imitation wood grain that matches the fake Ford stuff and that will cover the face of the switch box. (that item is still about a week out but can be easily added later)

I bought a Ford Fuse block that is used on the Police package vehicles. It fit perfectly behind the access panel under the steering column. The fuse block has 6 fuse slots and pigtails, so now I have a couple of spare switched power wires I can use for other things. I wired this fuse block so that it is getting power directly from the battery, via a 30 amp relay that is controlled with the ignition. (of course the relay is fused at the battery and from the ignition switch) Another fused protected 30 amp relay was installed to feed the fog lights. I wired everything so that when the key is off, every thing goes off with it.

I pulled both turn signals off of the front, snipped the wires and soldered in new wires to feed the turn signals in the mirrors. Sealed the new solder joints with heat shrink and electrical tape, covered the new wire with sheathing, and ran it into the cab. There is a small grommet under the heater motor that can be used as an entrance point into the cab for the right side signal wire, and I have an automatic tranny, so I use the plastic plug that covers the clutch pedal opening in the firewall to run my left side signal wire through. Power for the marker lights and switch illumination is coming off of the brown wire that is not used on my trailer brake controller wiring harness under the dash. Power for the mirror heat is coming from the switch-relay controlled fuse block.

My truck is a 2000 so in my original mirror upgrade several years ago, I installed the round to flat plug adapter harness. That harness only has the three pins and wires necessary to run the power mirrors. If you don't already have heated mirrors, you need add 4 more wires (total of 7 wires) to for this upgrade. I did not want to cut and splice wires on the mirrors, so I went back to the Ford Dealer. The parts guy and I dug through his junk pile and found enough of the pins and pigtails (you need 4 for each side) for all of the wiring to go through the flag plug connectors. I picked up some 4 pin Molex plugs at Radio Shack and used those to make a plug and play wiring harness to connect my home made wiring harness to the factory flat plug on the mirror harness. That made a very clean looking install inside the door.

Be gentle when you mount your new mirrors. I've heard of some folks tightening the nuts to much and they have to buy another new mirror. The service manual says 61 inch pounds of torque.

If you have any questions just yell, I'll try to remember to snap some pictures when I finish up the drivers side mirror wiring tomorrow. Finding the Ford OEM pins and Molex connectors is the only way to go. You can buy the pins from directly from Ford, but they cost around 4 bucks each.

 

Yeh, I'm going to do my install probably today. I think I'm goin to put my heat on a lit toggle switch and mount it down on the kick pannel underneith the steering wheel so it's out of the way and inconspicable. As far as the turn signals you can tap the wires underneith your steering wheel but since you already have that part finished this probably wont help, would have saved some time and wire though. Godd luck on finishing. I knida hoping to do mine in a matter of a few hours (3-5) But I'm fairly good with wiring and have a pretty good Idea what I'm getting into.