GMT 800 Suburban 2500 Tow Mirrors

[donforeman]

I know this is Speed-Talk, not Tow-Talk, but there are a ton of very smart people here so I keep posting tow related questions with fairly good results. Here is my next one. I have been through a few towing vehicles in the last year, the latest is a 01 Suburban 2500. It tows the 6000 lb enclosed trailer, chassis dyno and gear up the steep Oregon mountains very well. I know I could have purchased a diesel, but budget is a big factor and the whole truck with 120,000 miles, cost less than than the normal parts and labor bill for injector replacement on the Duramax. It does need cosmetic and maintenance work that I am doing slowly. The power mirrors are mostly inop. The switch is in-op in a few directions, and the mirror on the passenger side is cracked. Perfect time for a change. I am not a huge fan of the big "bird house" looking tow mirrors. Just too large for what I think I need and having something that big hanging out there in the wind can not be good for fuel economy. For the small enclosed trailer I have now, tow mirrors are not needed, but I hope to go to a wider enclosed car hauler in the near future. I found the factory add on style tow mirrors #15172059, but they are manual, not power. I found a few pictures of Suburbans with them on. Was there a drivers side power mirror delete panel ever offered for the early 2000's Suburban? One that would keep the drivers power window control but eliminate the power mirror switch. Its a minor hassle, maybe I am too picky, but I like my vehicles to be right if possible. Having a power window control switch in a door that does nothing would bug me. Ha ha. I called the local Chevy dealer they did not want to be bothered with looking anything up and gave me the "obsolete" line. A visit to the wreckers did not produce any unusual control panels for the drivers door. The photo below is the style of mirror I am talking about. The photo may be factory, so at least a few suburbans had them added on.

[dannobee]

Have you tried looking at the GMT800 commercial trucks instead of a Suburban? The dealer installed towing option for the mirrors that I remember looked like the stock mirror but had an electric telescopic feature. You could tell because they had a bellows between the mounting bracket and the mirror main body. IIRC, you lost one of the features with telescoping. Might have been the fold in feature or heated mirrors, can't remember. And for the most part, the Suburbans in my area were usually the higher end models, so manual mirrors wouldn't fly with most people. Up until a couple of years ago I had a set on the side of the house, thinking that I or my son would use them, but I finally just gave the pair away to a coworker.

The mirror in your pic looks like the commercial baseline 3500 series mirror. Those were manual mirrors with the roll down the window to adjust "feature." The door panels didn't have a cutout or switch for the power mirrors.

Something like this:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Towing-Mirror- ... Swe-helnxt

I'd look in wrecking yards or on ebay for the factory style ones.

[donforeman]

Thanks for the tips, the style like you show, appear to be on the 2003 and later Suburbans. I could probably change the harness and switch out for those if needed. Gm Heritage Center has a lot of manual mirror options listed for the Suburban in 2001 in their literature including "camper mirrors." I think they were rare. I have only found one other 2001 suburban pictured with the manual mirrors. It was sold on ebay a few months ago.