Rear View Camera Install

Hi everyone,
Been a long time since I have been on here. Just purchased a new rear view camera and finished the install yesterday. I do have one problem. When I put the car in reverse with the key in the "ON" position and the car not idling then the camera works fine.
When I turn the car completely on and in idle, the when I put the car in reverse, the picture has lots of distortion and lines. Can't even make out the picture.

Could this be a grounding problem? Please advise.

Sound very similar to the issue that I had.
In my case I tried to use ground from one of lights in the trunk lid. And just as in you case it did work fine with the engine off, but as soon as you start the car the image got garbled. I think the reason is that light ground is equal the chassis ground to enable CAN to verify bulb continuity. I never got to the bottom of this.
I ended up running a separate ground wire directly to the chassis somewhere in the trunk. It was faster and cheaper than adding a some form of the diode bridge to get rid of the power oscillations.

Max

Mad Max,

Thanks. What you are saying is that I should just pull the ground all the way to the front and connect it directly at the head unit or ground it somewhere in the trunk rather than connecting it to the ground wire of the reverse light? I will give it a try.

I did connect it to the body in the trunk. I also used power for the outlet in the trunk (as far as I remember) and not from the the reverse light.

Max

Taichimaster could you please give some some insight as to which wire is the constant for the reverse lights

Yes please do...


2011 Jetta TDI

Hi everyone, finally fixed the problem. I had tapped into the power from the reverse lights only but in order to rectify the garbled picture, I also tapped the power from a constant 12V at the cigarette lighter. That fixed it. I guess the power to the reverse lights varies and thus the picture wasn't clear when car was running.

taichimaster said:

Hi everyone, finally fixed the problem. I had tapped into the power from the reverse lights only but in order to rectify the garbled picture, I also tapped the power from a constant 12V at the cigarette lighter. That fixed it. I guess the power to the reverse lights varies and thus the picture wasn't clear when car was running.

Click to expand...

Glad it worked for you
What did you do for the ground?
Max