Hello My Fellow HAH drivers,
I just bought one of those back-up cameras that you install on your license plate, and they wirelessly transmit the image to a screen you mount in your cabin. It was about $100, and I have seen it at several stores now. Anyway, in case anyone is considering installing it, I did it over the weekend and it works well, so I thought I would share what I learned.
1) When you take off the rear license plate, there is an access port to the trunk, which I imagine is for the wiring for a factory-installed camera. It is plugged with a white plastic stop, not easily removed; however, all you have to do is to drill a hole through the plastic stop, and then you have the access you need.
2) You have to splice the camera wires into one of the reverse light wires, so you need to remove at least part of the trunk lid liner. There are delicate plastic screws -- be careful when you unscrew them and then pull out the screw sink mechanisms.
3) The instructions say to unplug the battery. I imagine that on the hybrid, disconnecting the small 12 V battery won't help since it is only the back-up. I have no clue how (nor would I want to) disconnect the hybrid battery. So when I spliced the camera wires into the reverse light wires, I was careful to do one at a time, and to not be grounded myself. It worked perfectly. The black wire is the ground, and the green wire is the positive wire.
4) When I installed the monitor unit in the cabin of the car, I just used the lighter adapter, but it does have a kit to install to a power supply in the fuse box. Way too advanced for me and likely dangerous for me.
Anyway, I wanted you all to know that a fairly technically average guy like me could install that thing and it works well.
Back-Up Camera on the HAH
