The liquid in my electrochromatic mirror (97 Continental) settled to the bottom and cause the mirror to be very dark. I have been looking for a reasonably priced used replacement with map lights and compass but have come up short.

Since the car just failed inspection for the mirror I decided to at least put something in. I found one from a 2001 Continental with the compass but without map lights. This I can live with for a while. The connector matches my '97, and the mirror itself has the same 7 pins. The harness that came on the '01 mirror only had 3 wires, the other 4 slots were empty.

I plugged it in, and the compass works. So does the dimming and the driver's side mirror dimming.

My problem is, the mirror LED and compass do not go off when I turn the car off. If I press the buttons a couple of times they do, but I was hoping it would turn on and off with the ignition like the original one did.

My questions are as follows:

1) Can anyone explain exactly what the "Comp" and "Mirror" buttons do? This probably sounds like a stupid question, but I want to make 100% sure. Maybe a certain button pressing sequence will make it operate by ignition.

2) Does anyone have access to the wiring diagram for the '01? The harness that came on the new mirror has purple/orange, black, and black/purple wires. I would feel a lot more comfortable if I knew for sure what circuits these are in the newer car. If I have to swap pins to make a proper match, I will gladly do so.

4) My '97 EVTM shows circuits named "Illumination Dimming Input" and "Demand Lighting Input". What is the difference between the two?

Thanks for reading. Hopefully some you you guys can shed some light on this for me.

The "Comp" or compass button turns the compass on and off, and if you hold it down for 10 or 20 seconds, you can recalibrate the compass if you need to. The mirror button turns off and on the auto dimming. You should check out ebay, you may be able to find something there.

Thanks for the reply. The recalibration helped. The mirros seems to work properly.

The only thing left to figure out is why the compass and auto-dim LED don't turn off with the ignition. I know I'm going to forget to turn them off one day and I don't know how quickly the compass might drain the battery.