Good dash cam install or not ?

Rather than directly answering the question it’s probably easier to say what is not a good install, since most of the important bits are hidden from you, the customer.

Quite often people will say it was a very quick install and are impressed with the speed – this just means it wasn’t really done with any care and may even be dangerous.

The most common issue I see is to do with lazy and incompetent wiring placed across the vehicle airbags – this is a hidden danger not at all obvious to the customer.

When car manufacturers build airbags into a vehicle they take the utmost care not to let anything interfere with their correct deployment in an accident. So why would anyone think it is acceptable to run wiring across the airbag deployment zone ? Do you really want to be finding out that they don’t work properly when you really need them ( hopefully never !! ) ?
Modern vehicles have a multitude of airbags (yes all those white things are airbags) :

 

Typical airbag-locations:

Steering wheel
Passenger dash
Driver’s shin airbag
Side impact curtain
Side impact seat airbag
Front A-Pillar
Rear C-Pillar

These are all possible. The exact ones fitted depends on vehicle manufacturer and vehicle model / year. As an installer we have an absolute duty of care to avoid interfering with any of these airbags – you never know when you may need them.

A typical airbag will, in the event of an accident, deploy in less than 0.5 second. What would happen if there are cables running across the airbag or the door rubber ?
When an airbag goes off what happens ?

Steering Wheel: The centre cover on the wheel will be pushed to one side and the airbag will rapidly inflate from the centre of the steering wheel.
Passenger Dash: Some have a removable cover which pops up, others have a weakened area in the dashboard where the airbag breaks through. Wiring must not be allowed to foul the airbag.
Driver’s Shin Airbag: Located in area beneath steering wheel. Cables must avoid interfering with this area.
Side Impact Curtain: This is the 2nd most common installation issue. These airbags are designed to deploy in the event of a side impact and will almost always come though the headlining / door rubber junction. Countless times I have seen idiot installers take the quickest route from the rear dash cam back to the front dash cam by pushing the cable into this area. They don’t give a damn about your safety. Rear camera wiring must be run down to the floor and back up to A-Pillar.
Side Impact Seat Airbag: Some seats have these built in where it is not practical to fit a curtain airbag – typically found on convertibles. When the deploy they break through a patch of reduced strength area in the seat covering.
Front A-Pillar: These typically deploy through the gap between the A-Pillar trim and the door seal. The A-Pillar trim may also disengage with captive retainers. If you just run a cable up the door rubber this will interfere with the exact route the airbag is going to take. The airbag will still go off but may be stopped from coming out of the door seal, delayed and not inflated correctly.
Rear C-Pillar: These typically deploy through the gap between the C-Pillar trim and the door seal. The C-Pillar trim may also disengage with captive retainers. Cables from the rear camera must be routed to avoid interfering with this airbag. There will normally already be a wiring harness fitted by the vehicle manufacturer and the camera wiring should be cable tied to it and follow the same route.

As you may well now understand the installation of a Dash Cam is a bit like an iceberg – you probably only see about 10% of the work that has been done when fitting it. Most of the real work is hidden from view. It is however quite easy to spot a dangerous install – just look for wiring across the door rubbers