I'm trying to install a back up camera on my 2002 X Type and I've seen a million threads where it says the lights are reverse wired--meaning I would need some kind of transistor.

I'm obviously trying to do as little electric work as possible as the car is near perfect, and I don't want to mess that up!

In theory the rear parking sensors only come on during reverse? Wouldn't there be a positive and negative somewhere in that loom of wires that I could tap into much easier.

PS. I dabble with electric but these diagrams on here are foreign language to me, I can't find anywhere online where the cables in the tail lights, or parking sensor looms are labeled not just numbered.. ah!

Any help is appreciated, I'm sure I will be on here a bunch!
Jordan

 

Jordan, there is a wire that runs to the parking sensor module located in the spare tire well. This gets 12VDC when the car is placed in reverse. This same wire also lights up the reverse lights. When you are not reversing, the wire has no power on it. I would need to look at the diagrams, but I can tell you the color wire that you would need to tap into.

On a side note, I do wiring for a living and I live about 2.5 hours south of you (California/Leonardtown, MD). If you don't mind a little bit of a drive, I could help you out.

 

Jordan, if you look at the parking assist module in the spare tire well, look at the plug and find the green wire with a black stripe (attaches to pin 9). That wire will get 12 VDC on it when the reverse lights are turned on (ie, car in reverse). When the lights are not on, then you are going to see ground (well, close enough, it will be ground plus the resistance of the reverse lights which will read about 5 ohms when read with a multimeter.

If you are needing a ground, then I would simply find any bolt in the area and use that as a ground. If you must tap into a physical wire to make yourself feel better, then you can use the black wire attached to pin 3 of the parking assist module.