Rear dash cam wiring run - experience? (FitcamX)

Hey all

Wife has always said she wanted a dash cam when we got any new car, so I ordered the FitcamX. I love the clean OEM look, and the fact all wires are easy to hide on existing connectors, meaning no splices or wiring runs for that.

Curious if anyone has run a rear dash cam wire in this car yet. I'm not sure if I can run it along the headliner the whole way, due to the side curtain airbags. Which means I probably need to run it down the pillar then up the side trim to the hatch in the back, right?

I haven't found any videos or photos for the gen 5 online yet for this kind of project, so wondering if others have any experience before I run the rear cam wire. Front cam I have zero worries for

 

Do you have side curtain airbags? For me, I just don't want the cable to be run right in front of those, as it probably interferes with the safety system. Down A pillar airbags, I know you're supposed to run wires along the factory harness which is clearly running a seperate side of the pillar.

The owners manual shows that there are airbags somewhere along the upper rails of the car, so that's what I'm curious about :/

 

True. Though my concern isn't the airbags failing to deploy. Quite the opposite, it's the airbags pushing/snapping/pulling the cable and the cord being thrown towards passengers at the speed of an airbag being deployed.

 

I got a bum unit, but, the shroud fit and should work just fine with your LE since it worked with my prime.

I just got a unit with a bad SD card slot so they're shipping me a replacement now.

 

I have a prime SE and it worked just fine in terms of fit.

The little plastic tab that attaches to the shroud is a bit different from FitcamX, it has a slightly bigger hole for the mirror, probably to accommodate the digital mirror option and to allow for the cables to fit better?

Even the Canadian base Prius isn't the same as the US LE. I think we only get the AWD mid and top trim equivalents here.

 

1000004074 by Zeromus posted Mar 10, 2024 at 7:36 PM

1000004073 by Zeromus posted Mar 10, 2024 at 7:36 PM

1000004070 by Zeromus posted Mar 10, 2024 at 7:36 PM

1000004072 by Zeromus posted Mar 10, 2024 at 7:36 PM

Ran the rear wire today.

Taking off the back trim was easy, and used a fish wire to pull the cord through the grommets then along the wiring along the driver side at the bottom to match the factory wiring harness.

With the fish cord quite easy actually.

Just need to be careful with the passenger trim with weatherstripping. They're actually attached together at a clip. And run the wire behind the rear passenger airbags.

Of note - the wiring grommet has clips on it, denoted by little dots. Pushing in on one side to release it the other side wiggled out very quickly with no hassle

Update:

For all that is holy try not to to remove the a pillar clips far at all. At. All.

The clips that hold it in place so the plastic doesn't fly into your face, when the airbags go off are a ***** to get back on. Absolutely, miserable. Just try very hard to, at best, peel it back just enough to see where the line fish is going. Not enough to come off the clip fully. My.....

 

Small update: all works great. The A pillar trim didn't seat perfectly by the speaker grille.... I need to fix that when I have the time and patience to not scream at the clips.

Ideally, you remove the A pillar clips and put them on the trim then put the trim on the car. I found a YouTube video detailing these clips on a different car. But the little release tabs are so tiny and so far back they're very hard to remove.

So yeah, don't pull off the a pillar cover if you can help it. The trim catch clips are honestly infuriating. There's a long bit of plastic that fits into a pocket of the trim that needs to be fed in, while the clip (that can turn) has to not move at all, and then it can clip into the trim.

Removing the clips entirely involves pressing two very thin tabs on the lower part of the clip, next to the sheet metal, almost underneath the body of the main clip itself. Maybe if I had a pair of angled very thin and long pliers it would work. But I don't have this tool (yet, I will inevitably have to get one)

As for the hatch, it was very easy and no issues. I will have to go back in with some small glue on clips to secure the cable to avoid potential rattling, when I also go in this summer to add some sound dampening sheets.

The car has quite a bit of underlayment actually under the carpet, and it's thick, so that's definitely helping with sound at the front. There's also a very wide channel for the side airbags that is easy to fish wire through to follow on the rear seat airbag area - I didn't lift the trim because I wanted to be extra careful with the airbags there. But following the wiring was very simple, and the existing factory clips for wiring harness can hold the cable very well. Only part I had to zip tie to avoid loose wiring was when I got to the driver side footwell, as the factor harness terminates in that area and there is less factory clips to piggy back off of when fishing the wire upwards.

I'd rate the install of the FitcamX very easy. Just time consuming for the rear cam. If you get the front cam only, it's honestly trivial. Just ensure the car isn't cold, so that the trim cover doesn't snap when pushing it back on, and make sure all the wiring bundle is outside the little plastic trim opening when sliding on, then stuff it in *after* to finish it off. This avoids wiring pinching or getting in front of one of the clip paths which can snap the plastic clip due to the pressure involved to put it on.

Love the quality, I'll post some clips this weekend if I get the time.

Worst part really was just the a pillar. The slope and construction is very narrow so it is very hard to fish the wire, tight behind the factory wires, and put the trim back. If you have the right tool, it would be significantly easier to anyone doing this in the future.

- final comment: if you don't have the digital mirror, the FitcamX secondary shroud clip (that covers the wires and the rear view stalk) is actually too small of an opening. The factory trim has a larger hole for the rearview stalk, so it has a greater range of motion, and if you push the stalk too high up with the FitcamX one, it pops the trim off. The whole piece with the way the angle works, not just the small piece.

Chances it's ever an issue are low, but I've reported it to FitcamX and they've asked me to take photos of both pieces (theirs and Toyota's), so maybe there will be a revision. The Toyota trim piece doesnt fit as it's male end clip tabs are different and don't slip into the FitcamX female clip receivers.

If anyone has more questions about FitcamX and gen 5 I'll be happy to answer

Sorry for double posting and if this isn't super clear, trying to sneak it in on my work break before the freshness of the task is lost for me

 

You can use really long pliers to pinch it at the frame of the car to remove it. I bought some to do it myself.

If you have them then you can get it back on. It doesn't rattle but it does leave a little misaligned gap if you don't replace them.

And you can pull it mostly off, to give you room to work, without removing them entirely. But trying to get them back into seated position is going to be a pain in the nice person - doable though, if the goal is to drive for a few days until you can get the new clips.

Pliers make it much easier to reseat them. But, the plastic kinda bends funny once it gets removed so you need new clips at the end of the day to make it fit nicely like it did before.