Good morning... I need some assistance finding an easily accessible and correct hot wire and ground to hook up my Valentine 1 radar detector in my XJ-L. The fuse boxes in the center rear seat and trunk are inaccessible to run wires to the front of the car and I don't want to tap into a diagnostic wire or a hot lead to an airbag! Any suggestions on how to identify the proper wiring, and get to it, for a passenger-side install?

 

Just pull the overhead lights down and meter a suitable supply on the plug and splice into it. No need to run wires all round the car then

 

I did that on a car back in the early '90's. The wire was for the reading light and was hot all the time. I occasionally forgot to turn it off at the end of the drive. It didn't really matter since it was my daily driver. It could drain the battery as little as I drive now, especially with the Jaguar.

 

Mine is connected in the upper console and was done by my dealer when I took delivery on my 2013. Not sure of the wiring now as back then the lighting was incandescent and is now LED so loads may be different. The pictures are where the detector and indeed it is there now plus Blackvue Dashcam.

 

Not as elegant as what you have done or wish to have done, I placed my detector at the lower left corner of the windshield, on a non-skid rubber pad. It never moves. I snaked the power wire between the A-pillar and the dash, down the left side of the dash, then under the dash past the steering column to the center console, then shoved it under the paneling that covers the hump to exit behind the back of the console and plugged into the power outlet. Admittedly, not great. But, I can leave the detector on at all times. It powers off after I shut down the ignition.

 

DrErnie, if you are looking to mount it up high (by the visor), you can access a wire in either the overhead console or the vanity mirror. In both cases, the wire that you are after is a brown wire with a green stripe on it. This will have power any time the car is turned on (ie, turns off when the car is off)

If you are after something down low, then I would recommend accessing the glove box light and going after the brown wire with a green wire (same power source as the vanity mirrors). So, again, it will turn off when the car turns off.

As for the ground for the radar detector, you can find a screw in the area and slide the ground wire under the screw and tighten it back down. If you want something a bit more professional looking, then you can put a fork or ring lug on the wire so when you loosen the screw, the lug will look like it was there from the factory.

If you need more info, let me know. I do wiring for a living and can walk you through just about anything that you would have in mind.

 

 

Just connect a multi meter to a wire the put it on the dash so you can see, lock the car an wait about 5 mins and see if it goes to zero volts. Just try them till you find the correct wire

 

This isn't rocket science. Get a multimeter and figure it out. Use a tap style connector so you don't need to cut anything. I just did this with a camera and it took all of 5 minutes to find an ignition switched source.