Dash cam installation in Revesby

How a dash cam is fitted decides whether it is any use. Powered from the lighter socket you get a cable hanging across the dash, no socket left for a charger, and a camera that dies the moment the ignition goes off, which is exactly when the car is most likely to be hit.

A hardwired camera takes its power from the fuse box through a proper fuse tap with its own inline fuse. The cable runs up the A-pillar, behind the headlining and down to the camera, tucked behind trim the whole way. When it is done right you see the camera and nothing else.

Getting the trim off without breaking it is the skill, and it is the same one we use every day in detailing. The A-pillar cover on most modern cars sits over a curtain airbag, and the clips are designed to release in a particular way. Lever them and they snap, or worse, they get in the airbag’s way.

Hardwiring is also what makes parking mode possible at all, because the camera needs a permanent live feed to monitor the car while the ignition is off.

A front camera covers the collisions you are most likely to be blamed for. A rear camera covers the ones you are most likely to be hit by, and rear-end impacts are the most common claim of all.

Rear installations are more work, because the cable has to run the length of the car through the headlining, down the rear pillar and often across a tailgate loom on a hatch or wagon. Done badly it rattles or chafes. Done properly you never see it.

If you park on the street, the rear camera earns its keep in parking mode as much as on the road.

Footage settles disputes. In an at-fault argument where it is one account against another, video of the moments before impact is usually the end of the conversation.

It also covers the situations with no other witness at all: a hit-and-run in a car park, damage that appeared overnight, or a claim made against you for an incident you were not involved in.

Some insurers recognise dash cams and some do not. It is worth asking yours, though most people install one for the evidence rather than the discount.

Drivers doing rideshare or taxi work often want a second lens facing into the cabin as well as the road. It is fitted the same way, from the same hardwire, and it usually mounts as a single unit behind the mirror with a lens each way.

An interior lens needs infrared to see anything at night, and cheap ones do not have it, so check before buying. Whether passengers need to be told is between you and the platform you drive for.

Combined with a rear camera that is three views on one card, which makes the high-endurance card and the regular format more important, not less.

Newer cars have a pod behind the mirror with forward-facing cameras and sensors for lane keeping and emergency braking. The dash cam has to stay clear of it, because a lens or a cable in that sensor’s view can put a warning on the dash or degrade the system.

The right position is high on the glass, inside the swept area of the wiper, beside or below the pod rather than on it. On a car with a large pod that is a narrower target than it sounds, and it is one reason a quick stick-on install ends up low on the glass filming the bonnet.

Tell us the make and year and we will know what the windscreen looks like before we arrive in Revesby.