Thanks Eric! I guess that senility is setting in - - as many times as I’ve clayed my paint to deal with water spotting, I didn’t think to try it on the mirrors.
Clayed them a few minutes ago, and the spotting is gone! Couldn’t do the bottom of the pax side mirror because of the “objects in the mirror are closer than they appear� lettering which is on top of the clear coating.
As most of you probably know, car mirrors haven’t been made with real glass for a long time. Glass mirrors, like in your bathroom or older car, have the silvering on the backside of the glass. Plastic mirrors, like on your newer car, have the silvering on the front of the plastic and the silvering is topped with a very thin coating of clear plastic. You can determine whether your mirror is glass or plastic by touching the surface of the mirror and checking the apparent distance between your finger and its reflection; on a plastic mirror they’ll appear to be touching (or very close to it), and on a glass mirror they’ll be separated by they thickness of the glass.
On a “practice� plastic mirror I found that it doesn’t take much abrasive to go through both the clear coating and the silvering and get black spots as your reward. When I get a right side practice mirror I’ll play with removing the warning.