Henry Tomasino Posted January 23, 2014 Share Posted January 23, 2014 When I test drove a Fusion SE last month, I noticed that the garage door opener (only available if you get the sunroof) is integrated into the sun visor, somewhat unusual as I'm used to seeing garage door openers positioned in the same place as the sunglasses holder. If I am getting a brand new Fusion by factory order, I am not getting a sunroof, as I honestly have zero use for it. If I'm buying a "new used car", chances are it'll have a sunroof whether I like it or not - of the autotrader listings that have the stuff I actually want, 99% of them include a sunroof. I have yet to decide which route to take. But if I should end up getting a vehicle with no sunroof, I lose the garage door opener, which is handy to have. My question is: Since the garage door opener is integrated into the sun visor, would it be possible to perform an aftermarket visor swap? I'm sure the parts can be gotten from scrapped units (e.g. Fusions involved in accidents and written off). That way I could have the garage door opener without the sunroof - something Ford should have offered from the start, haha. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JScullin Posted January 23, 2014 Share Posted January 23, 2014 I think you can just plug in a visor with the opener and be good. It pulls power from the vanity mirror and isn't tied to the cars electronics. I have it and that's how it seems to be integrated. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
akirby Posted January 23, 2014 Share Posted January 23, 2014 Yes, you can just swap the visor. I added the transceiver to my 06 Fusion visor - it's all self-contained and you just need power. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Henry Tomasino Posted January 23, 2014 Author Share Posted January 23, 2014 Thanks guys Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fordmantpw Posted January 23, 2014 Share Posted January 23, 2014 I added the controls to the visor in my '08 Super Duty. It was a bit of a pain getting the visor apart, but nothing an hour and a butter knife or two couldn't fix. It was well worth the $15-20 it cost to buy the unit on eBay. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Henry Tomasino Posted January 23, 2014 Author Share Posted January 23, 2014 I added the controls to the visor in my '08 Super Duty. It was a bit of a pain getting the visor apart, but nothing an hour and a butter knife or two couldn't fix. It was well worth the $15-20 it cost to buy the unit on eBay. Cool, so you manually spliced the garage door opener into your visor instead of doing a straight swap? For only $15-$20, I'd certainly do the same, if I pick up a car without a sunroof. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fordmantpw Posted January 23, 2014 Share Posted January 23, 2014 Cool, so you manually spliced the garage door opener into your visor instead of doing a straight swap? For only $15-$20, I'd certainly do the same, if I pick up a car without a sunroof. Yep. The visor had the cut out in the plastic already. I bought the module, opened up the visor (just took off the cloth), spliced the opener modules wires into the vanity mirror light wires, made a slit in the visor cloth for the module to fit into, snapped it into place, put the cloth back on, and voila! Took me about an hour or so, but I was being extra cautious not to tear the cloth when taking it off the visor. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
akirby Posted January 23, 2014 Share Posted January 23, 2014 I did the same with my Fusion - bought a maxima visor on ebay for $30 and swapped over the module. Problem I had was I couldn't figure out how to get the cloth off without cutting it, so I cut the cloth and then it looked like crap. It's a lot easier to swap the visor but a new visor from Ford is $300, so if you can be careful with the cloth you can do it yourself a lot cheaper. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fordmantpw Posted January 23, 2014 Share Posted January 23, 2014 Problem I had was I couldn't figure out how to get the cloth off without cutting it... Very delicately! That's what took 90% of the time when I did mine. I used two butter knives to gently pry apart the plastic and slowly work the cloth out. My summer job when in college was working in an upholstery shop. I've actually put some of what I learned there to good use! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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