If you need any photos, let me know and I'll get them after work today.

When routing video and power wires from the cargo area to the hatch, I also used the route you described. The cables are visible at the hinge in my installation. I did wrap them together in electrical tape, and tucked most of the run into the plastic trim, but a few inches are still exposed. It's noticeable, but mostly because I know it's there. My wife has yet to notice the wires.

For the reverse signal, if you look by your cd changer you will see a group of 7 or so wires bundled together they go through a grommet and connect to the tail light assembly. This bundle is where you will tap for the reverse signal. I've taped mine back up, so I'd have to retest to tell you which wire I used.
But, if you have a multi-meter, you can remove the tail light, and the back cover so that the bulbs are visible. You can then trace out which 2wires end up at the reverse bulb.

You can also put the car in reverse and test at the connector itself.

 

Thanks, Chris51080. If it is not too much of a trouble, please post a picture of the area you tapped into. I definitely do not want you to remove the tape etc since that would be a bit much of work.

How did you run the wires through the plastic trim at the edge? I tried to remove it, but i was unable to. So, the wires hang out where the trim for the hinge and the trim to hide the wires at the side of the hatch door meet.

My plan is to identify the wire by removing the tail light assembly and trace back the wire from the reverse light bulb. Is it easy to remove the assembly? I may look in the owners manual to see if they have instructions on how to replace the bulbs.

Thanks again!!

Cheers,
-K

Edit: Chris51080: I found this from your older posts on this thread.

"I powered up the camera by tapping into the right reverse light power (black with blue stripe) and grounded at one of the grounding lugs on the right side of the spare tire.". If you post the picture where you tapped to this wire, that will make my life a lot easier. Many thanks in advance!

 

Two photos attached, the first one shows the wiring at the right hatch hinge. I was able to run the power and video wires up the trim along the edge of the hatch. The portion in the photo is the only part that is visible, and normally it is tucked in between the two pieces of the hinge...I pulled it out so you could see it.
You can see the outer hinge has a two piece plastic cover, remove part of it and route your wiring in there.

The second photo is showing the area near the CD changer. You can see two wires, one red and one green. The Green wire is my ground, which goes to one of the grounding lugs near the spare tire.
The red wire taps into the bundle of wires serving the tail light. I cut away some of the cloth wrapping, used a vampire clip, and then used electrical tape to secure everything back together.

Removing the tail light assembly is pretty straightforward. There are a couple of torx bolts securing it in place. You should see some plugs on the edge of your hatch near the tail light. Remove the plugs to access the bolts. Once you remove the two bolts, simply pull the tail light assembly out. It comes straight out...and took a little more force than I had initially thought. Once its out, verifying the reverse pinout (and therefore the correct wire in the loom) is pretty straightforward.

 

Many thanks, Chris!!! Your job looks a lot cleaner than mine. I guess I will redo the wiring near the hinge again so it does cleaner like yours.

I will make an appointment with the dealer this Saturday since I can be done with this wiring today. I will post an update on Monday.

Thanks again for the pictures.

Cheers,
-K

 

It's not difficult to pop apart the plastic covering on the rear hatch hinge so the wires run inside, like the factory harness does. That way the wires aren't exposed at all.

 

I tried it and was afraid I might break it. The end that is towards the hatch door pops off easily at the top after removing that piece that curves. It is the inside of that plastic piece that I was having difficulty in removing. I will give it another shot tonight.

 

Partially open the plastic sheathing it so you can just thread it through if you don't want to undo it all.

 

Garrett, thanks for the tip. I tried to remove the lower hinge piece as well, but thought it was going to break.

 

Quick update.

Wiring done. Waiting for the FAKRA connector and a trip to the dealership (scheduled for Saturday morning).

I rewired the wires from the hatch door to the inside. Thanks to Garrett, I was able to remove the plastic cover that covers the hinge and was able to route the wires through that. Looks great now.

The wire goes through the plastic cover and comes out from the left side. Not straight through. So, if you are trying to push the video RCA wire through, remember, it will have to make a 90 degree turn. Also, the cover is shaped like a "J".



After putting the cover back on.



Thanks to Chris, I was able to tap into the reverse light and power the camera. Below are some of the pictures on how I did that. Chris, you were right on. The wire to tap is the blue and black wire (or black with blue stripe). I removed the tail light assembly, routed the wire from inside through the grommet and used a clip to tap at the connector. Once connected, I taped them all together.

Tapping to the reverse light wire (blue with black stripe)



Wire coming through the grommet.



To ground the camera wire, I used the grounding nut that is inside the area where the CD changer is. See the below picture.

[IMG]

Once power wiring was completed, I hooked up a TV to the video cable near the head unit, started the pig, shifted to reverse and voila! Reverse camera picture on the TV. I even suggested to my wife that I can leave the TV on the passenger seat until we make a trip to the dealership. hehe

Thanks Toureg, Chris and Garrett for all the pics and information. I will, once again, update about how it went at the dealership.

Cheers,
-K

 

Kalyan, please post a pic of the camera installed, thanks.

 

Here you go. Pardon the dirt, we have a snowstorm with highs in single digits.



Here's another.



Cheers,
-K

 

Bummer!! I got the FAKRA connector in the mail today. Pulled the PCM and hooked it up in the back. As I was looking at ways to route the video cable from the camera to the head unit, I realized that the RCA connector was bent. It then occurred to me that when I was removing the TV monitor last night, I moved the monitor without disconnect the RCA cable from the TV. That damaged the connector and the middle portion of the RCA connector got bent. Tried to straighten it and the metal part came out.

Looking on youtube if I can some how rescue it instead of redoing all the work. Will I lose video quality if I cut the wire and attach another RCA wire to it. Youtube videos show that it can be done.

Totally bummed! Also, how and from where can I route the wire to the PCM. There is hardly any space behind there and the panels are very tight to send the wire through the gaps.

-K

 

Thanks for the photo, looks pretty good. Sorry for the RCA problem, I would try to splice on a new connector and if it does not work then rewire. That does suck though. Looking forward to seeing the final results. My OEM camera went out and I am going to add a camera soon and will be splicing into the OEM wiring, problem is that the OEM camera is 6v not 12v so I need to find the right one.

 

Wiring a new connector is pretty easy. Run to radio shack, get a new connector and solder it in place.

If you'd rather splice two cables together, it will also work just fine.

 

Update:

Just got back from the dealership. They were able to turn on the reverse camera on the PCM. Works great now! They charged me $70 to activate it and the technician said he had to change the order in which the PCM activates in order for the camera to show up quickly.

So, after the RCA plug broke, I went to Radio Shack, picked up the male connectors and soldered it. No loss of signal at all. Getting it behind the PCM was a little harder than I thought. But I was able to use a thin coat hanger wire to pull it behind.

Overall cost was about $102. Not bad considering it looks OEM.
Camera: $23.99 (from China)
FAKRA connector: $7.77 (from China)
Dealership cost: $70

The camera needs a little adjustment but I am very happy with the results and want to thank everyone who shared their knowledge on this site to make this happen!!

Virkdoc: I was not able to stand and watch what they were doing. I was busy in the waiting area working... Sorry.

Cheers,
-Kalyan

PS: Does the camera only show on PCM if it is on? If the PCM is off, no image is displayed.