bugman

Most of us in here have hard wired our radar detectors to the rearview mirror hot wire, so that you can use a mirror mount like this:



I did that about two weeks after buying my C6, March 2005.
I actually don't know when my mirror went on the fritz - might have been a year ago, might have been a month ago - I don't often drive at night in any traffic --- but eventually I noticed that it would NOT DIM at all in response to night time driving.

Took it to the dealer and he says the wiring of the mirror was "burnt out", and blamed my hard wiring of the radar detector. He still replaced the entire mirror under warrantee, but told me I should not wire the detector there. Mine is the Escort 8500, which has never malfunctioned, works perfectly, even when the mirror obviously did NOT work.

Questions:

1. Do you guys believe this? never heard of this before.
2. Shouldn't the fuse system have prevented exactly this problem if the dectector really DID draw so much current that it was going to burn the wiring?
3. Anyone else have this issue?
4. Should I really look for another way to wire the detector? any suggestions? Running a wire all the way around the windshield from the cigarrette lighter (esp on a convertible) can be a PIA.
5. How could the detector have "shorted" or "burned out" the wiring in the mirror if in fact the detector itself continues to function normally? If it drew too much current from it's hot wire, THAT wire should be blown so the detector should NOT have any power, right?

Hence my poll quesion above Thanks for any guidance you can offer.

C-INRED

I think if the dealer really believed it was the detector that burned out your mirror and could substantiate it that he would not have replaced the mirror under warranty.

IMO if the draw was too high with both the mirror plus detector it would blow a fuse not burn out the mirror.

keyplyr

lawyer2b

bugman

yes, that's my contention - this is exactly why we have fuses.
I'm on the fence as to whether I should ignore his opinion and reinstall the wiring through the mirror (because it's so convenient that way), or look at another option in the hopes of avoiding another failed mirror --

If I had to get it fixed again, they might not be so kind at replacing it for free...can't imagine what a mirror would cost (the headlamps are $1300 a piece ! (yes I had to get one of them replaced too.. don't get me started)

Also, I have this damn car in the shop once a MONTH for one thing or another that is broken. I just hate to tempt fate - it would be nice to have the car with everything working for MORE than a month just once. Man, can't say my Vette experience makes me ever want to buy American again.

thanks for letting me rant a bit.

Mvfvette1

The dealership gets paid by GM to replace the mirror under warranty. There is no chance that the dealership is going to tell GM that a radar detector was hardwired into the mirror. I'm not saying that this caused the wiring to go bad, but the dealership would would most likely replace the mirror under warranty even if they were absoluetly positive that the radar detector caused it. That is how they make money.

TMyers

I assume that it was the internal wiring in the mirror that failed? If so the dealer is wrong. By hooking up the detector at the plug we have created a basic parrallel circuit. From the plug to the detector and mirror the current requirements are what those circuits demand by themselves. From the plug back to the power source will be the sum of those 2 circuits. The fuse does not protect the circuit but is there to protect the wire.

schilitj

wired it back to the fuse box on the passenger side

shopdog

While you are probably right, if he hooked the detector up to the wrong wires for power or ground, he could have been drawing current through the internal mirror circuitry instead of being in parallel with it as you explain for a correct hook up. That could possibly burn up the circuits in the mirror.

steve miller

Yours is the first post regarding a problem with the mirror (that I can recall) If 1000 of us have hardwired to the mirror, and your's is the only one that has mirror problems IMHO the odds would be long that the hardwiring was the problem.

We'd have heard about this before if it were a pervasive problem. We here know way more then the dealers

Landru

Good news has to be it was replaced under warranty.


Nope, I don't.
UNLESS it wasn't wired properly to start with, in which case why didn't the Escort blow, also?

One would think, wouldn't they.

Nope, and I used the Escort 8500 & replaced it with the 8500 X50.
Never so much as a burp from either mirror or detector(s).

Only if it happened, again.
Of course I'd know next time the fix would be on my dime, too.
If I know GM the fancy electrochromatic mirrors can't be an inexpensive proposition.

Just the other day (Thurs?) a poster asked a similar question, wanted an EWD illustrating how & where to tap into the seat cicuit.
A search might turn it up, someone provided a link showing detailed instructions w/ pics.

I'd have to agree.
So the $64 question has to be what really caused the failure of your mirror?

MNVette

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of us using the Invisicord setup on the mirror, and yours if the first I've ever heard of potentially causing a problem. My mirror works fine, and my 8500 x50 works as advertised as well. No issues. I don't think its the Invisicord that's the problem.

TeamSpeed

It would have been interesting to see what their response would have been if you had pulled the Invisicord out of the harness before taking it in. In my experience, dealers like to "blame" what appears to be the easiest rather than really dig into determining what the cause was. They don't get paid the 2 or 3 hours it might have taken to take the mirror apart and test the innards under a warranty claim, they just say "mirror is defective, we replaced", and get paid the predetermined time for that job. It was very easy for them to look at your mirror, see the cord, and immediately blame it for the situation. Just my take after having to go through 3 clutch replacements on the 2003 Z06 in under 36000 miles due to sticky pedals and misbalanced pressure plates, where they thought everything else was to blame instead of the manufacturing of said items.

It seems to me that most dealers make more from non-warranty work where they charge you the full price of parts and labor, not the warranty/insurance reduced rate for both. At least our local dealers don't actually like to do warranty work, takes longer to get paid, and revenue may not be as high. Of course, it just may be that the local fauna here generally doesn't know how to go about getting lower prices on parts/labor either, and the dealers exploit that fact.

bugman

Yes, I know Teamspeed is correct.
I never even considered blaming the blown mirror on my invisicord - therefore I never thought to disconnect it before taking the car in.
It doesn't make sense, for reasons I've mentioned.


Shopdog brought out a good point.
I assume my wiring was correct. My pics and installation can be seen at http://bugmanweb.com (click on Escort), and in fact, at the Invisicord web site, it is actually MY pictures that are shown as the example of installation.

I'm assuming that most people have therefore connected it the same way, and have never had a problem:




And hey - actually I LIKE the idea of just wiring it to the fuse box. I'll take a look at that.

Great responses, men - thanks to all of you for taking the time.
Teamspeed - I'm guessing you've never had anyone else report any problems in the past several years?

TeamSpeed

Nope, the list of concerns brought up by past customers can be summarized into two categories:

1) blown fuse x 2 (g35 owners) - folks touched the connectors by accident as they were installing, and my answer was to not have the ignition on as they installed the connectors. The G35/350Z connections are two slots next to each other, so easy to touch the connectors as they are inserted.

2) Increased false signals x 3 - and one of these investigated with Valentine tech support, and found out from Valentine that certain Verizon cell phones cause false signals. Turns out 1 of these three actually changed phones at the same time as going with the Invisicord. The others were much older claims, and both sent their units to Escort, and both had their antenna system replaced as being faulty.

So out of about 6,000 customers across about 40 or so different vehicle models, 5 complaints, none of which were really related to the Invisicord. I always worry when I hear potentially other issues related to the Invisicord, but really with the cord being just wiring and no electronics, it is hard to have a wired conduit mess anything up if installed correctly.

As to Shopdog's point, you would measure the voltage at the harness with the harness disconnected from the mirror and see that those points give you 12v+ without the mirror even being in the circuit. Therefore you cannot be pulling voltage through the mirror since 1) the vehicle is supplying that voltage, and 2) you are hooking into in parallel. Also, if the circuitry was fried but voltage was coming through that to the detector, your detector would not have powered up once the circuity was completely shot.

Yes, thank you very much for the pics that were added to my installation gallery, they are very handy!

bugman

oh yes - by the way, I think the ones I have on my little web page are of much better quality, if you have an interest in those instead (I migrated my web page to a different server).

Thanks so much for all your thoughts -- I fully agree with everything you said, and great to hear that you've never heard of this problem before.

shopdog

Not to belabor a point too far, but it is possible to draw current through the mirror circuitry if you connect to the wrong pins. For example, there are 2 pink wires. If you hooked to 16 (automatic day/night dimming) instead of 13 (Ignition 1 voltage), the radar detector would try to draw 200 mA through the day/night sensing circuitry. If that circuitry fails shorted from that excessive current draw, then the radar detector will work, but the day/night mirror dimming won't. Of course if it fails open, the radar detector wouldn't work, and a person might then try the other pink wire and forget he ever tried the wrong one. Mirror dimming is still dead, and radar detector is now working. Then months later the person, who rarely drives at night, might notice that the autodimming feature of his mirror doesn't work.

bugman

You know - I'm looking all through my 2005 shop manual, and I cannot find any wiring diagrams ANYWHERE - for sure no wiring diagram of the mirror. No help there, apparently.

Shopdog - do you know for sure that contact #16 (which is actually the lower row, contact all the way at the left in this photo, marked with a "1") actually is the power input for day/night dimming function? And that #13 (the one I used, 4th from the left in this photo, marked by number "4") is the correct wire to use?







I really like your explanation. In my case, I definitely never wired anything to #16, but had wired the detector to #13 since day one. Can you verify that you believe this is the correct wire contact to power the detector without drawing current through the mirror?

It would be much nicer if I could find a wiring diagram schematic , but like I said , don't know where it is -- where in the shop manual are the wiring diagrams located?

Thanks for all your help!

shopdog

Yes #13 is the correct pin to pick up switched ignition voltage. In the 2005 shop manual, page 8-794 has the connector pinout and signal descriptions. The schematic is on page 8-792.

jonparks

My Mirror also went out. Last week. I have my detector wired the same way. I'll be taking it back for a warranty swap I hope. I dont know if the detector caused the problem.