After towing trailers and camping trailers for years, it wasn’t until I bought a caravan that I noticed one major problem when looking in the mirrors. I couldn’t see past the caravan!
I have a 1998 Toyota Landcruiser HZJ105 which has a width of 1940mm. I thought this thing was a tank, until I put our 1998 Jayco Starcraft behind it, which is a lot wider than the Land Cruiser.

A friend gave me a set of extendable mirror for when towing the caravan, which was fantastic at first…..then when travelling up the road doing around 90 k/ph we almost lost one of the mirrors as the vibration had made it come loose and almost fall off!!! But what could we do? We were told that a set of mirrors to fit to the original mount would cost over $800. We could not justify that for the time being as we were only going away every few weeks.

Then we made the decision to travel around Australia, taking the 4×4 and the caravan and seeing this beautiful country!!!

Enter the hunt for towing mirrors.

Whilst at the Caravan, Camping & Holiday SUPERSHOW at Rosehill, we decided to buy a set of dedicated towing mirrors. We looked at 2 different brands, Clearview and Vision Plus. We decided on the Vision Plus purely for the $200+ price difference between the two brands.

The old mirrors on the Landcruiser gave you a limited view and I need to attach convex mirrors to the glass. The width of the mirror from the door frame to the inside edge of the mirror measures, 80mm. The new mirrors are 240mm in the closed position and 335mm in the opened position.

Take note of where the Telegraph pole is behind the caravan.

The new mirrors came very well packaged, in styrofoam and each mirror was wrapped in clear film and was in individual bags.

Fitting the mirrors was relatively straight forward, I first removed the door trim to access the bolts that held the original mirrors in place. Took those bolts out, then removed the old mirrors.

Installing the new mirrors was reverse of this, there is a wiring harness that you can plug into your existing powered mirrors. My Landcruiser did not have powered mirrors.

After doing the bolts up, it was just a matter of re-fitting the door trim etc and that was that. I only used basic tools such as screwdrivers, ratchet and sockets. It only took me about 10 minutes per side.

Old mirrors

New mirrors

Checkout the caravan in the distance to gauge how much more you can see. This is without the mirrors extended.

Not to mention the fact that there is a convex mirror at the bottom, which I use a lot being a truck driver!!!

Mirror in closed position (Not a very good photo as the caravan was not hooked up and was on a slight angle)

Mirror fully extended. Look at the telegraph pole behind the caravan.

I’m sure the mirrors will be a valuable asset when towing the caravan around Australia! They also come with a 12 month warranty!

If you want more information on these mirrors, please checkout Amazon outdoors – click here or call 1300 432 748.