Hey folks,

On my driver-side mirror and rear view mirror, I occasionally have this visibility issue when the sun/light outside is just about dusk where I can barely see out of these two mirrors. It appears like some coating is there for perhaps anti-glare purposes. Not sure if this is to be expected or not, but it doesn’t happen on my passenger side window ever.

attached photos of my driver-side mirror and passenger side mirror on the same day/time. You can clearly see the lack of visibility on the driver-side mirror. Thanks in advance for the help.

Visibility issue

No visibility issue

 

in the manual it will tell you how to turn that off or on. Obviously the passenger side is off.

 

It might be "normal" - it is your automatic mirror dimming feature. There are two photocell sensors on the inside rearview mirror - one faces forward, toward the front of the car. The other is on the mirror face, toward the rear of the car. The one facing toward the front is the "reference" sensor - it determines the "ambient" light conditions. The rear facing sensor is supposed to detect the headlight glare in your mirror. So, with low light toward the front, and higher light toward the rear - it will dim the inside rearview mirror and the driver side rearview mirror. At dusk, light conditions are generally low, but if the sun is behind you, the rear looking sensor might see a higher light level and dim the mirrors. The other way this might happen is if you have mounted something in front of the mirror (between the mirror and the windshield) that blocks the front sensor - making it see a low light level all the time.

Here is the service manual description of it:

"The inside rearview mirror uses 2 photocell sensors. One sensor is the rear light sensor, located on the face side of the mirror, facing the rear of the
vehicle. The rear light sensor is used to determine light conditions present at the mirror face. The other sensor is the front light sensor, located on
the backside of the mirror, facing the front of the vehicle. The front light sensor is used to determine the exterior light conditions at the front of the
vehicle. With a low exterior light condition detected by the front light sensor and a high light condition from the rear light sensor, the inside rearview
mirror will automatically darken the face of the inside rearview mirror and the driver outside rearview mirror. The inside rearview mirror provides a
control circuit and a low reference circuit to the driver outside rearview mirror to darken the mirror when needed."