What happened to my dash cam at the garage?

What happened to my dash cam at the garage?

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MmmLombardo

Original Poster:

10 posts

9 months

Wednesday 31st July
quotequote all
Hi there,

I dropped off my car with dash cam/reverse cam to the body shop last night. I have installed the camera myself directly into the fuse box, and it has been working fine. For some reason though, you always need to turn it off manually on the device once you've stopped the car, as although I located a fuse that seems to be off when the car is off, it doesn't turn off on its own. It does turn on when the ignition is turned on though.

I informed the garage of this, and asked them to power down the device manually so that it didn't drain the battery while they were working on the car.

When I picked up the car this morning, the cables to the device were unplugged, and now that I plug them back in, it's not working properly. It doesn't turn on automatically when I turn the engine on, which it always did before, and when I manually turn it on, it comes on, but with an error message saying 'battery low', and soon powers off again.

What do you think happened? My only thought is that they drained the battery of the car somehow, but there's no other sign of that as the car starts fine.

Any ideas would be much appreciated.

AndyDubbya

963 posts

291 months

Wednesday 31st July
quotequote all
Sounds like they’ve disconnected it at the fuse box end too.

MmmLombardo

Original Poster:

10 posts

9 months

Wednesday 31st July
quotequote all
Surely it wouldn't be coming on at all if that were the case?

Drogo

738 posts

224 months

Wednesday 31st July
quotequote all
Not certain but,
battery in dash cam drained, leave it as is to recharge for awhile it may go back to previous state if you've reconnected it to your original connections?

Fore Left

1,501 posts

189 months

Wednesday 31st July
quotequote all
MmmLombardo said:
Surely it wouldn't be coming on at all if that were the case?
The camera probably has a battery in it so it has enough juice to power down in an orderly fashion.

MmmLombardo

Original Poster:

10 posts

9 months

Wednesday 31st July
quotequote all
Ah right, that makes sense. So hopefully if I just leave it a while it should charge. I'm not sure if that needs to happen with the ignition on or off though. I guess I'll see...

AndyDubbya

963 posts

291 months

Wednesday 31st July
quotequote all
If it doesn’t turn on properly when you turn it on manually with the car’s ignition on, it’s not connected to power, and it’s only turning on briefly using what’s left in the battery.

If it had power from the car, it’d be turning on, which is why I think it’s been disconnected at the fusebox end - unless you’ve already checked that…?

Fore Left

1,501 posts

189 months

Thursday 1st August
quotequote all
AndyDubbya said:
If it doesn’t turn on properly when you turn it on manually with the car’s ignition on, it’s not connected to power, and it’s only turning on briefly using what’s left in the battery.

If it had power from the car, it’d be turning on, which is why I think it’s been disconnected at the fusebox end - unless you’ve already checked that…?
Or the fuse has blown.