Good ask. I thought about that but did not want to do any damage

 

This is essential as it saved me with clear evidence last December when some pratt come bombing round a blind corner and into the back of my previous car. His car was a 2.5 ton Land Rover Defender with solid metal bumpers etc, then he tried to blame me that I'd pulled out on him! I advise everyone to invest in a decent camera, and fit it properly so it auto starts and stops without you forgetting to do so!



Sarge

 

I want the 512gw on offer atm but I don’t trust my local Halfords for fitting :x

 

The last place I'd take my car to let their Monkeys loose on my Baby would be Halfords (and Kwik Fit for that matter). They wired a stereo in my last car (whilst in previous owners ownership) and as that car was Canbus, they simply ran a bit of 'speaker' cable across the front of the fuse box (yes lay'd over the other fuses!), wrapped the end round the leg of a fuse and back to stereo, I was stunned when I bought the car and discovered this! Never seen anything like this since the old Ford Cortina days

The previous owner has a receipt showing his purchase and fitting from Halfords.



Sarge

 

I read on another forum somebody was asking about dash cams. Somebody mentioned Halfords and then an Halfords member of staff advised against letting Halfords work on there car. They said that there is not training, they are basically put in the job, given some tools and they have to just try and do what they can. It would be the same as you trying.

If you can get from the top of the windscreen to the fuse box (which I think is in the engine bay) via the trim, you can get a piggy back fuse. You unplug a fuse, plug the piggy back in and the put the fuse in that, then all you need to do is wire the earth to a screw on the body work. You would need to see where Mercedes have run the cables from the engine bay to the dash.

For the rear, if you are lucky enough to have a 12v socket in the boot then you could just plug in there, otherwise if you are like me without one, then you would have to run a 12v cable from the front.

This kit is for the Nextbase dash cam, but you should be able to buy the parts for all. - https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Nextbase...rd-Wire-Kit-Car-Dash-Cam-Camera-112-212-312-402G-412-512-512GW-DUO/291517377396

I used to put in alarms and car stereo, amps and all sorts on my cars and my mates. The bad part is getting the trim off without breaking clips.

It is surprising that with most cars having rear camera's and the augmented reality having a camera at the front, that Mercedes didn't have dashcam recorded fitted in, it would be another option and a safety feature.

 

It’s baffling that there is no facility to connect to the existing cameras on the new Aclass. I understand that their use is illegal in some European countries and that dashcam footage is not admissible in court in Germany (I think). So it may have something to do with that, or that the on board cameras are only switched on when required.

 

The rear camera hides away when not in used, but you can turn it on when driving. Bit strange driving forward and see the camera. Wont the front camera be on all the time when using the augmented navigation.

Just a simple SD card slot to record them would have been ideal. There are a lot of thing that illegal in some countries, so Mercedes just have to leave the slot out of those countries cars. They make left and right hand cars, and leave options out of UK cars that are available in other countries, including safety features

Talking of safety features, according to the brochure the car comes as standard with "Active Lane-keeping Assist". According to the internet "Active Lane Keeping Assist can warn the driver when they unintentionally leave their lane and can use one-sided braking intervention (via ESP) to help manoeuvre the vehicle back into its lane." Does everybody have this and does it work?

 

The active lane assist is standard and does work! I may be wrong but I think for broken white lines it vibrates the steering and for solid white it will brake on one side which pulls you back into lane, and makes you jump a bit the first time.

 

Upon collecting the car on Saturday, my dealer told me the Mercedes Me app on the phone isn't working at the moment and it is an issue everywhere on the newly registering cars at present, is this the case with anyone here?

There is supposed to be some info below the black area under the cars picture.

 

Works for me, since I picked it up 5 weeks ago.

 

Did you pay for the services? The Merc Me services did go down today for a while, don't know if that was local or not, but was working fine for me up to then.

I picked my car up on Saturday and once I had been onto the portal, set it up, verified I was me, it worked fine, but I have not paid anything as I have no use on checking my car from a distance, although the self parking from the phone looks interesting. I could just see people looking as the car parked itself with no driver and me stood looking on from outside.

 

I believe the self parking is only for the E Class.

 

Thought the parking was too good to be true. Can't give the baby Merc all the goodies.


Do you find that the pack are handy or do you think it is a "use it now, not bother later". I looked at them and thought about if I would ever need them. I don#t even use the cruise control.

I'm a bit old school and find I don't even use my phone for everything it can do.

 

The tracking facility gives me a bit of comfort that I might be able to track the vehicle if it is stolen. You can specify a zone and you get an email whenever the car exits that zone.

The remote lock unlock has come in handy once.

 

I installed a Blackvue DR490L in my W176 A200 without much drama and intend on transferring it to my future W177 when I eventually choose one.

Although it is not quite the same, this is how I figured things out for my W176 and may help when figuring out an installation for the W177.

In the W176 there is a fuse panel in the passenger foot well beneath the carpet, complete with fuse chart. Maybe this location has been used again in the W177 ... it's worth a hunt to find out, because there was a spare permanent live slot, spare ignition live slot and an earth stud just waiting to be used inside the cabin.

As for routing the power and rear camera cables in the W176 ...
- the A pillar is a removable air bag cover
- the inner edge of the flexible door seals can be lifted enough to conceal cables
- the B pillar trim has enough of a gap at the top to hide the cable between front and rear door seals
- the C pillar has a removable air bag cover and the air bag cavity has plenty of room for any spare cable
- there is a void above the head lining between the C pillar air bag cavity and the rear hatch
- there is a flexible cable conduit running from the centre rear of the head lining void to the centre top of the hatch
- the top trim inside the hatch is removable

I hope this is of use, as I don't have a W177 handy to experiment on just yet and there doesn't appear to have been much posted online.

 

Not specifically a dash cam but I mounted my radar detector (W176 A Class) just above the rear view mirror myself. I purchased a thin extension power cable which i've run between the roof lining gap and the windscreen and tracing the wire all the way under the steering, footwell until it eventually reaches the cigarette lighter. The only visible cabling is between the radar detector and the windscreen (about 5cm's) and then close to the footwell area where the cable reaches into the lighter socket. No mess, no fuss, hope it helps.

 

Sounds a good idea. My lease company specifically states that dash cams must be plugged in and not hard wired, so I don't want to start removing panels. I could wire it into the fusebox no problem, but finding somewhere to run the cable is the problem.

Might just put stickers on all the windows saying it has camera's, so people will think twice about claiming false things lol. I once has somebody knock the back of my car on a roundabout, then tried to say I was reversing backwards onto them around the roundabout, trouble is it was there word against mine and a few witnesses.

 

Dashcams really aren't that difficult. I could remove mine in about an hour and it is a 2 channel front/rear system wired into the fuse panel. Nobody would even know it was ever installed in the first place.

With many insurance companies routinely pulling sh***y stunts in the name of profit, like going knock for knock to avoid fighting each other regardless of who is actually at fault, a dashcam is as much a defence against them as it is against other motorists.

 

I probably will do it. Stripped enough cars down before.

I had a motorbike gut my last car, going down the inside of my car while I stopped to let somebody out on the passenger side, there was no room for him but he did not want to overtake, bent the door round. If he was a little later then he would have taken my passenger out. The insurance decided it would be a 50/50 fault, work that one out.

 

Nightmare. Cheaper to split the blame than to contest it. Prize asshats.