Has anybody had their dashcam installed by Halfords?

[Mysterae]

The other half got me a dashcam for Christmas including installation by Halfords. I'm a bit concerned that they'll make a mess of my car (640d), either by removing trim or having wires visible. I appreciate that installation quality will vary between branches, but has anyone had one installed by Halfords and gone smoothly or otherwise?

[Moominho]

My dad had his done with no issues. But it's a Honda Jazz. I would be very wary about letting them on car with trim as plush as the 6 series...

[Odhran]

Had mine installed in my A6 yesterday with no issues. Thumbs up from me.

[HoHoHo]

I've just bought two Nextbase 312GW's from Halfords, one for my X5 and one for my wife X3

I would no more let Halfords near either car than I would shag Jordan.

I routed the power myself to the central armrest, wires hidden and whilst parking mode isn't powered, job done and more importantly no damage.

[marktmorgan]

My story

OK so bought a new (to me)Jaguar XKR in October and had a list of things I wanted doing.

Notably a tracker and a dashcam

Was originally going for a Blackvue DR950s front and rear, but chose against this as:

1) The blackview had no screen and was bulky
2) The blackview had no speed/camera warnings

So scoured t'internet and the Garmin 55plus seemed to stand head and shoulders over others, plus it was compact and unobtrusive.

Halfords had a deal on and popped into my local branch to get a quote, spoke to the assistant manager (Matt) who seemed very friendly
and knowledgeable. It was Matt's last week as he had got a full managers post at their Wells branch

Due to the car going in for paint correction and an imminent trip to London I booked for 2 weeks later. The install took about 2hrs
mainly because of the tight panel fit in my suede headliner and A pillars. It was Matt's last week as he had got a full managers post
at their Wells branch

4 days later my car battery went dead, no biggie as the car was over 4yrs old and so changed the battery out at a cost of £120. A week later that new battery went flat, so I went through the fuse boxes with a multi-meter and found that the ignition wire (clearly labelled)
was wired as permanently live.

I contacted the Bridgwater branch and they said for me to pop the car in, which I did to be advised that the fitters were all busy and that I'd
need to make an appointment. This did slightly annoy me as I'd been asked to bring it in, only to be told that, I tried to explain that, had the
job been done right the first time I'd not be returning also that rewiring a single wire should take no more than 10 minutes. I advised them that
I'd not be returning and would go elsewhere and ensure that an on-line review would be done.

I had to pop to a builders merchant a mile away from the centre, when I arrived I had a missed call from the branch, called back and was advised to return to store to see if anything could be done. Returned parked up and my phone rang again and it was Tim who advised that it was him that had tried to reach me. He then advised me that...wait for it THEY COULD NOT FIT ME IN TODAY!!

I told Tim in no uncertain terms that I would not be returning to that store and would get someone else to rectify. I have booked this into be looked at by Taunton Halfords (a 40 mile return drive for me) on Tuesday 20th Nov at 1.30

So the moral of this story is look out for a flat battery after a dash-cam install by Halford's, more than likely they've wrongly wired dash-cam

No damage except to their reputation!

[ninjag]

I wouldn't let them do it. Not so much about the trim, most of the time you can simply tuck the wires behind without removing, but as mentioned above I wouldn't trust them with the electrics.

Will they wrap the wire around an existing fuse, cut into wires or use add-a-circuits?s?
If they use an add-a-circuit will the gauge and rating be high enough for the fuse location they choose?
Will they risk using a critical component fuse such as airbags?
Will they wire the acc and batt to the correct fuse locations if using a battery protect device?
Will they ground it properly?
Will they check for circuits which don't shut down until 10-20 mins later after ignition off? (i.e. BMW)


I've installed loads of dash cams in both cars (12v) and trucks (24v) and about a third of the install time is finding, testing, testing again and triple checking the best and correct fuses to tap into using a multimeter. I really can't see Halfords taking that much care or time.

I just did a 2008 Fiat 500 on Saturday which was horrible due to the fuse box location. Ended up having to intentionally (with permission) snap a piece of side trim on the fuse box because it was stopping the add-a-circuit from seating fully. You'd never know it was removed, but you may end up knowing if it wasn't snapoed and the partially seated add-a-circuit shorted out.

[sooty61]

I had a local car security firm fit two dash cams, both Mercs as I found Halfords range too bulky. They claimed to fit to Mercs all he time as a main dealer is about 400 yards away. They took about 3 hours to fit both cameras. On both cars whenever stop/start engaged the cameras would shut down so I took them back. They spent another 4 hours retiring them and it made no difference. I jus switch off eco mode now but I am irritated the could not fit them properly. Who knows, Halfords may have done them properly.

[ninjag]

sooty61 said:

I had a local car security firm fit two dash cams, both Mercs as I found Halfords range too bulky. They claimed to fit to Mercs all he time as a main dealer is about 400 yards away. They took about 3 hours to fit both cameras. On both cars whenever stop/start engaged the cameras would shut down so I took them back. They spent another 4 hours retiring them and it made no difference. I jus switch off eco mode now but I am irritated the could not fit them properly. Who knows, Halfords may have done them properly.

Have they used a standard hardwire kit? The potential short duration during the start/stop will be interfering and possibly corrupting the camera's shut down and reboot procedure?

A battery protect such as the Multisafer or even better the Vico Power Plus should prevent any problems if the correct fused circuits have been used. When the car goes into start/stop mode the device will simply shift power to the Battery+ circuit and the camera will continue to roll with everything being seamless.

If they are using a battery protect and tried various fused circuits then it may just be one of those unlucky events due to the Mercedes' electrical setup or something.

[sooty61]

I supplied the standard hardwire kit and they didn’t mention anything like the products you describe. I watched a few DIY installs on YouTube and thought it looked fairly straightforward, except m wife’s car is an SLK and I didn’t fancy removing the trim as it is all in one piece so I thought I would leave it to the “professionals”. I haven’t got a clue where they wired them in

[ninjag]

sooty61 said:

I supplied the standard hardwire kit and they didn’t mention anything like the products you describe. I watched a few DIY installs on YouTube and thought it looked fairly straightforward, except m wife’s car is an SLK and I didn’t fancy removing the trim as it is all in one piece so I thought I would leave it to the “professionals”. I haven’t got a clue where they wired them in

Was it the Nextbase one (or unbranded clone from Amazon)? It does the job fine for a hardwire setup where you want the cam to start with the ignition and far better than butchering a cigarette lighter connector and splicing into the car's electrics etc - which many do! But I reckon this kit will be where the problem lies with the start/stop. I installed a front and rear camera setup using the MultiSafer and then updated to the Vico battery protect in my F30 (which had start/stop) and neither presented any problems at all. I think I even used a Power Magic Pro at first but it went bad so stopped using them.

Hopefully they've used the add-a-circuits that came with the kit, I see no reason why not to as it would be the quickest, easiest, safest (it protects the OEM circuit) and most non-intrusive way to do it. Have a look at your fuse box and see if you can see any wires leading into any of the fuses, it will be very obvious.

Here's a photo from my install in the BMW, although the fuse box being in the boot was a pain for having to route wires to the front windscreen, access to the actual fuse box and surrounding area was thankfully very good! You can see the two add-a-circuits on the left and right side of the fuse box (chunky red wires). the ground using the bolt in the bottom left and the Vico Battery Protect on the right with the digital readout.

[sooty61]

Thanks. It was an unbranded kit from Amazon and both cameras are ROAV C1 Pro. When I came back to the workshop he was under the dash of the SLK and the fuse boxes are under the bonnet and in the boot so who knows where he connected it. Mine is an E Class so it might be in the dash fuse box. I will take a look

[Superleg48]

I always run my wires tucked into headlining, a pillar and door trim under the back of the glove box, then tucked under the centre console trim to the cigarette lighter socket. (These have always never been permanently live in the cars I have had, so no issues with forgetting to turn off the dash cam.)

Far less hassle, install pretty much invisible save for the plug into the cigarette lighter, which is never used anyway and very easy to remove afterwards. No danger of causing untold issues with clocking up connections to fuses described above.

I do get the desire to hard wire though, I am just not competent to meddle to that degree and would rather not chance my luck with someone else’s competence or cost.

[dfen5]

Main thing to watch for is running cables over air bag points with so many curtain bags and so on, Halfords it not.
Find a bmw forum or the one on here, maybe someone has done a write up on how to do it.

[Yuxi]

Work mates son had one fitted by Halfords in a 2015 XF. It's been in a Jaguar dealer for a month having a new main loom fitted, all funded by Halfords, plus a courtesy car.
They put a sunvisor screw through a wire, a week later the loom melted somewhere behind the rear seats.

[B3NNL]

On balance, I've had 3 fitted by the Halfords branch in Yeovil and 2 were good with no issues, 1 had the wires fitted too tightly so the connector broke and had to be refitted FOC, has been fine since and thats over a year ago. All depends on whos fitting it, some are good and some are...not!

[Nick PM]

I had front and back dash cams fitted at local halfords last August. A couple of weeks ago my air bag warning light came on, so took my car in to my local garage. Turns out that the cams were fitted to the air bags and not were they should of been fitted to ( cigarette lighter). That cost me £50 to rectify. Went back to local halfords were they said it was fine to wire the cams to the air bags. Is this correct ?

[gmaz]

Nick PM said:

I had front and back dash cams fitted at local halfords last August. A couple of weeks ago my air bag warning light came on, so took my car in to my local garage. Turns out that the cams were fitted to the air bags and not were they should of been fitted to ( cigarette lighter). That cost me £50 to rectify. Went back to local halfords were they said it was fine to wire the cams to the air bags. Is this correct ?

F**K no! Airbags are part of the safety system so there should never be anything else connected to that circuit as a fault could interfere with the airbag deployment at the right or wrong time.

[Dash-Cam Man]

Nick PM said:

I had front and back dash cams fitted at local halfords last August. A couple of weeks ago my air bag warning light came on, so took my car in to my local garage. Turns out that the cams were fitted to the air bags and not were they should of been fitted to ( cigarette lighter). That cost me £50 to rectify. Went back to local halfords were they said it was fine to wire the cams to the air bags. Is this correct ?

Even as part of their basic training which we have been unfortunate enough to see, they are told clearly the difference between safety critical circuits & non safety critical circuits. The are most definitely not meant to connect fuse adaptors to fuses such as ABS, Airbags, Engine Management, FEM etc etc

Either it has been an accident (the Airbag fuse might have been next to the fuse the fitter wanted & they have picked it by accident in daze) or the fitter generally didn't know what he was doing.

[arthur256]

I have had my Nextbase 512G dashcam fitted to my Toyota Auris (2014) and Yaris (2017), and I will ask them to refit it to my Nissan Leaf shortly. No problems on previous two cars. They gave me 15% discount as a member of Toyota User Club. Very quick and efficient in my experience.