Those Bolt Holes on Underside of Side-View Mirrors

I am looking for suggestions about the best way to handle those hole-like indentations for the three bolts that are on the underside of each of the side view mirrors.

These appear to come from the factory covered over by a thin disc of what I can only describe as scotch tape material covering them. This material is so flimsy it makes me think that maybe it was just put on to protect the bolts from any potential corrosion during shipping.

When one of the sctoch-tape discs got ripped on my parents' Prius (at a car wash) the driver's side mirror bagan to give off a high-pitched whisteling noise at most road speeds, and it was particularly bad on the freeway. I figured out that it was because the ripped disc was channeling air into the hole, literally turning it into a whistle. I fixed the problem by covering it with scotch tape.

My questions are these:

1) Are those tape discs supposed to remain permanently on the car?

2) If you completely remove the tape discs (as opposed to only ripping off half of one like the car wash did) will it result in whisteling noise?

3) If the answer to question #2 is "yes", has anyone found a sturdier and more reliable way to cover these holes up?

Any information would be appreciated. Thanks!

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(4n6 @ Aug 15 2007, 08:27 AM) [snapback]496126[/snapback]</div>

Oooooh a chord!! That would be nice!

I thought about rubber or plastic grommets. The problem is that the three holes are not all "round". Some of them are "racetrack" shaped. So I realized that the odds of me finding some sort of rubber or plastic grommet at a hardware store that would actually fit these holes were only slightly lower than the odds of me winning the California Lottery this week. I guess it's possible.

What I was hoping to see is if anyone has already gone through this excercise and identified what type of grommets work, and could let me know where they found them.

OR it would be equally useful to find out if anyone has completely removed the scotch-tape-like discs and could report back what there experience was vis a vis increased noise or not.

I eagerly await any information like this.