Hey guys, has anyone hardwired their radar detector to their pathfinder? I was going to go direct to battery (on a fused splitter hub) with a switch, but i perfer something that turns off with the car. Im going to hardwire a valentine v1 to a rear mirror mount, so it will go through my roof liner down my A-pillar to a 12v source.
I plan on doing this friday or saturday so i have a few days to plan.

Thanks guys

-Hydroponix

i've been thinking about doing the same thing. couldn't you grab power from the rearview mirror? i mean mine has the lcd for direction and the auto dim feature, so it has power there. and if you don't have that, i would imagine there's a power wire there for it...

I have not done this in my pathfinder as my wife drives it. However I've done this before and I usually run the wire down either the driver/passenger pillar to the power outlets. If I remember, I think one of the two is always hot, while the other turns on and off with the key. It's usually worked great for me.

I thought about tapping into my mirror, in fact i went and got a mirrortap at the car audio store, but ended up returning it because my mirror is somewhat deffective :/ when it gets cold it will restart over and over again, i think ill go through the roof liner and a pillar, through the firewall and into my accessory splitter on a 2 amp fuse. I will just have to take out the detector or turn it off manualy when im not using it since it will be on a constant 12v source. It will have 2/ 2amp fuses before it gets to the radar itself. Now just to figure out how to take drivers side a pillar off. I really dont want to tap into my cig lighters, it just seem like a pain to get in there.

thanks guys, ill try to post some pics tomorrow if anyone is interested

HydroPonix wrote:Now just to figure out how to take drivers side a pillar off.

Super easy. Remove the door seal first & just remove the plastic trim pieces.

Got the radar detector installed! I decided to go through the mirror wire cover, up through the roof panel, down the a-pillar and out the firewall to my fuse box. Took me about 15 to 20 min to wire it up, works like a champ. Went to give it a try and it warned me about a cop shooting laser at me at a very clever speed trap (I kinda already knew about) and couldnt be happier with the results. Much appreciated on the replies.



Heres the warning:



Heres the speed trap at the top of the tunnel:

Curious if those of you with radar detectors can recommend a good one.

In my old Jeep the highway noise was so overwhelming at 75-80 mph I rarely exceeded the speed limit by more than 5 mph. Now that I'm driving the V8 powered R51 the tight cabin has me cruising 80 mph on most long commutes. it doesn't hurt that my state also recently raised the speed limit on rural stretches of highway to 70 mph.

I really like my Valentine V1 especially after silencing the Xband. I hear from alot of people the redline is amazing, my prob is it doesnt tell you the direction or how many radars are hitting you. False positives are annoying on the v1 but you can hit mute and it will warn you if a new bogey pops up, most k band falses only happens in cities near supermarkets, banks and hospitals. In my case i only worry about Ka and laser in the city, pop Ka and instant on Ka on thr highway (which is where i spend the majority of my time) If your on the highway, 18 wheelers will false x band constantly. Generally you will know if a cop is hitting you because the k or ka signal will go insane. If you looking for a reasonable price, go with an escort 8500 x50, but for 90 bucks more you can get a redline direct from valentine product sales (its cheaper than amazon and comes with warranty) if price is not a factor my top three are valentine one, redline and sti. I know the escort max is the new thing but I have heard mixed things about the escort max, plus it very very expensive. It really is a mixed bag when it comes to high end radar. I really jut watched a ton of you tube vids, went to many forums and did quite a bit of research before dropping mega bucks. By no means am I a Valentine fanboy, because i was going to get an STI or a redline, but the valentine was cheaper, matched the range and response of the STI on several bands or was very close on response time and told me where the radar was coming from.

You will get many different responses from others i can assure you, but my v1 has id'd 4 cops with plenty of time to slow down, and one that was shooting laser at me, ive only had it 5 days. Dont expect a radar detector to save you from a laser hit... there is no forewarning and it will only take .016 milliseconds to clock your speed.... good hunting.

I ran a V1 in the early 90's but once laser became the standard out on the highway I just retired it. Staying alert and watching what other drivers are doing seems to work pretty good for me. I haven't had a ticket since '93 (couple warnings) and rarely run less than 10mph over when it's safe to do so. I have pulled the V1 out of retirement a few times over the years depending on the roads I'm driving, but I find the falses to just be too annoying. But if you're going to run one I think the V1 makes the most sense.

Thank you for the responses.

Will a radar/laser detector pick up if a cop is using laser on other vehicles or is the beam so focused there is nothing to pick up?

My normal work commute is so congested with traffic I rarely have the opportunity to speed so this application would strictly be for highway use when traveling. It would be nice to relax my guard dog like attention on the center median and other hiding spots when doing city-to-city travel and interstate travel and just enjoy the ride at an elevated speed. So whatever highway patrol in most states are running is what I'm looking to guard against.

I've been a life long fan of http://www.rockymountainradar.com/

My family has had many units from rockymountainradar. Most of the units we have purchase are the detector/scrambler combo units. They also provide a 1 year ticket rebate if you do get a ticket while driving and using their system. As for being legal, here's a link on what states they are legal. http://rmradar.riology.com/radar_faqs.htm#faq_leg

So radar works in the sense that its a wave of microwave energy flowing through the air, bouncing off objects as it hits them and dispersing and loosing energy the further it goes. Typically a cop will have constant on radar, normally within the K and Ka bandwidth, which is a certan hz signal. Most falses will come in X and K band wavelengths as many radar devices (door openers) now use them. Typically their range is one to two blocks. A directed police Ka radar beam has a very tight wavelength and will carry much further and can deflect off many objects. If you pick up a very strong Ka signal, more than likely thats the police. Some highway patrol use instant on or POP radar, which is between K and Ka (more likely Ka) band and will have a very short but strong signal, generally detectable by a good radar at 1/4 to 1/2 mile. How this works is the officer will see an approaching vehicle, hit a button on his remote and his radar will make a very short burst, less than a second, to make a semi accurate reading (though this is debatable). The best defence to Pop or instant on is to let one or two cars get ahead of you, bout a half mile and listen for a chirp or two in those specific bands. You will generally know when its a cop because of the high signal strength and short burst time. So long story short, microwave radar carries much further, but needs to be very close 500 - 1000 ft in most cases to get a good reading. Of course on a perfect day on a 2 mile line of sight straight away it is possible to get a clocked speed on a vehicle. Laser is very different. Laser is light. As the distance increase, the beam grows in diameter. The light will travel at ofcourse light speefld, reflect off a shiny surface and back to the radar device, producing a speed reading in very very little time. Normally the moment you get a laser hit on your detector its to late, they've got your speed. Generally laser works at 500 to 1500 ft, always direct line of sight, and can single out individual vehicles and even record a short video to further assist in court. Advantage, laser must be stationary and cannot be used in a moving police vehicle. Some radars are sensitive enough to pick up stray laser waves boumcing off the windshield of the vehicle infront of you and may save you from a ticket if you are speeding, but laser traps are wicked because they can be much more difficult to spot.

Hope that explains it, sorry for droning on

Zen_master wrote:Thank you for the responses.

Will a radar/laser detector pick up if a cop is using laser on other vehicles or is the beam so focused there is nothing to pick up?

I don't think I ever had it happen when I was running a detector.

Usually I would see the cop before I would get hit with the laser and that's why I stopped running it. Sometimes if they're hiding over a hill you might get hit before you see them...but then again if you're paying attention you probably would have noticed people hitting their brakes as they topped the hill ahead of you.

I'm sure you've noticed the dark gray Chargers they're running a lot in OH now. They really blend into the highway and are tough to see. They're also using a lot of the Tahoes and just a couple weeks ago I know they took delivery of some Explorers. Those are even tougher to identify because of the roof racks. The Explorer they're running in my area has a small radar gun mounted above the driver door but otherwise looks just like any other Explorer from 100yards.

Of course IIRC you're in Cinci so I imagine most of your commute is just crawling along anyway. I'm down there fairly often and I've always voted that area as some of the worst drivers anywhere. No offense of course

IMHO if you're going to speed at rates that will get you pulled over it's overall more safe to be on your guard for anything including police. Hitting a deer at 85mph is not a good experience!

thanks for the explanation

After trying out a couple of detectors, I purchased the Escort Passport 9500ix and it is great! It's been two years and I love it. I run in automode with the X band detector turned off. The other detectors I had were constantly picking up false alarms and noise: the detector that cried wolf. The Passport 9500ix has a GPS where it logs the signals. If it picks up the exact same radar in the same place three times, it will ignore it from then on as a false alarm. It also has a feature where you can add on a service to communicate with other Passport detectors through your phone. Haven't used that feature but it's there. It's spendy but I highly recommend this unit.