Thought I’d share some pics of the radar detector I hardwired into my SL400 this week.
The unit I own is an Escort Max 360C, for no other reason than I’ve owned Escort brand devices for over 10 years and have been pleased with their performance.
The “challenge” I faced was 2 fold. One, where to find a switched source of power so that the unit comes on when the car is started and, two, where to mount the mute button on the smart cord.
Turns out the power was the easy part. I wired the power cord into the back side of the auxiliary outlet in the passenger footwell. Both positive and ground are readily available there and I used mechanical wire splices to avoid cutting the wires.
I ended up running the smart cord thru the center console, under the flip up tray, and mounting the mute button just above the tray compartment. This was definitely not my first choice of placement but I didn’t find any other suitable locations that also allowed for quick access by hand when needing to mute a warning. The mute button for Escort GPS enabled detectors also serves as the location mark button for false signals so it’s important to have it someplace handy. You can see in my pics that the button doesn’t interfere with the operation of the cover and remains accessible with the cover open or closed. As I said, not my first choice, but not too bad either.



I did have to remove the console passenger side panel and auxiliary power panel to gain the access I needed but these covers come off quite easily with a little patience and plastic pry tools.
After mounting the mute button I ran the power cable portion behind and over the back of the glove box. From there I fished the cable thru the dash by removing the triangular cover inside the passenger side door area. This also snaps out quite easily.
At this point I knew I wanted/needed to run the wire up the A-frame panel next to the windshield but wasn’t sure how to do it. Turns out the cover on that frame just snaps out with, again, some patience and plastic pry tool assistance.
Now all I had to do was run the wire over to the center of the windshield. I removed the screws holding the clips for the passenger visor and that facia piece opens right up and allowed me to lay the wire in and then reattach the visor. Before tightening those 3 screws that hold the clips in place I adjusted the wire to the length I needed and hid the excess in the molding.

 

Nicely done.

I just recently sold a CTS-V Coupe and still own a V One unit which was used exclusively in the Caddy. Back in 2011 when I got the car and was an active CTS-V Owners forum member I learned about a mounting bracket from a company called Blendmount. My power integration was achieved using an RJ11 jack from the V One and power/ground leads available in the rearview mirror. Simple and easy, however I understand the limitations requiring remote/wired unit control. For others, this may be a viable installation option.

 

Can you expound on this please? Which way did you pry the cover off? Did it go back on without issue?

I'm always breaking clips, etc... I'm scared.

 

In some states it's illegal to have a radar detector. I'm curious if anyone has ever done a completely hidden radar detector install?