And of course. two minutes silence for the deceased pheasant!

Prestige brands like Vauxhall, even buying second hand 1200 quid for a pair of headlights. God alone knows the Dealer price including mark up, vat , gold plated cardboard box etc. Never knew Vauxhall was in the Aston Martin premium price bracket. LOL!

Once on one of my cars I took a damaged electric mirror from a rover 216 for mine and using the bit from both rebuilt mine. a few years back my offside mirror was swiped by a passing car, just knocked the cover off, wouldn't stay in place as clips broke, Cured with some sealant.

Wing mirror light unit replacement on A class MB £200. MOT failure required replacement but lucky it wasn’t JLR which cost over £1000.

But is that really a MOT failure and is there any way of changing the bulb. Contact cleaner sprayed into the unit worked on. B class !

To be competitive manufacturers sell products with low margins, intending to profit on downstream spares and replacements at high margins. They have the tooling, intellectual property, volumes etc which make third party manufacture unlikely.

Actual uninsured replacement costs will come be an unpleasant surprise but are generally rare - the last time one of my wing mirrors sacrificed itself in battle was about 25 years ago in the south of France.

Things won't change - buyers of new cars value the benefits of complexity - LED lights, proximity sensors, cameras, etc. They are more likely to be able to cover the infrequent cost of expensive repair, and, bluntly, will be unconcerned about the lot of subsequent owners.