Has anyone hardwired their radar detector through the map light/sunglasses area here? Any tips? I don't have Homelink so I can't do it through the rearview mirror. I can't stand the hanging cord..help!!

 

get the direct line kit from escort or build your own by hacking it together

run along the edge of the headliner by jamming the cable in there

run the line down to the fuse box...use an ignitioned auxilary fuse

easy as pie

 

I hardwired my Valentine into the courtesy light area about a week ago. There is a hot wire (blue w/ red stripe) in the four wire connector. There are plenty of places to ground, and the phone plug wire going to the unit ran with the rear view wiring through the plastic sleeve. Very clean looking. Does this translate to an Escort? I dunno, but hot and ground should do it, if you got a fused link to hardwire it like Valentine offers. Hope that helps.

 

i'm picking up my Escort tomorrow and will be hardwiring it too...where does everyone mount theres?

 

I was going to do the hardwire myself but I was at Circuit City and I was chatting with the install guy there. They hardwired my Escort 8500 x50 for only $27! Not bad. I told him where I wanted it and it was a done deal. He even preserved the included Smartcord (not direct) without cutting it and just tucked it into the dome light area. I didn't even end up having to buy the direct wire cord. Here's some pics...looks pretty inconspicuous to me...

 

Link to post on my 8500 install

Cheers,
Oranje

 

There's enough room to fit the whole cig lighter adapter thing up there? I was just about to buy the directwire kit, but noticed it still has that bulky "silence" button box inline. I assume because the detector runs off 5V vs 12V...... as do most satellite radios.

 

thread resurrected after almost 3 years! lol

there is space up there, but not enough to put the cig lighter plug in. probably taken apart or cut.

 

Hey. Don't knock cause a '***** know how to search!

The space savings between the included cig lighter adapter and the direct wire kit is pretty minimal. ESPECIALLY when you add in the 10 miles of included "phone line" in the directwire kit that is suppose to power the detector itself. Since I obviously can't cut that, I'd have to ball it up there too. Space saved? Zero. So WTF. I'm set on not running it all the way down the a-pillar. I'm 2 seconds from ripping the cig lighter adapter apart, unsoldering every wire, cutting the wire to length and then re-soldering every wire.