My car came with a K40 installed. It gave roughly 2/3 of a second warning when it worked. Unfortunately 3 nights ago, it decided to take a nap while I was talking with my wife and not paying attention to my speed. Naturally a couple troopers from the Commonwealth were paying attention.

While sitting there stewing, contemplating my next opportunity to enrich a lawyer and the county, I tried hitting one of the buttons on the K40 remote. It then woke up and started singing to me. Nice.

So, I went with what's been effective in the past: got a V1 with a remote display. I just got done installing it, and thought I'd address a couple of the questions asked here before.

I chose to put the detector in front of the mirror, on the passenger's side. This blocks it from my view (pains me to have something dangling from a visor in a fancy car; at least this way I can't see it. That's the first image.

I routed the cable across the front of the headliner, then down the driver A pillar. The headliner was pretty easy, the A pillar not quite so. I used a plastic putty knife and a couple metal hooks to cajole the A pillar cover out enough to get the wire tucked behind it. This probably took the longest. I followed the A pillar all the way down to the dash, then worked back toward the driver seat, then pushed through just inside the door to get under the dash.

I chose to put the remote display in the ashtray area. That meant routing a wire up under the infotainment display. This was fairly easy (remove the center console, remove the bit around the shifter, then remove 2 screws holding the bottom of the infotainment display) except for reaching in from the front to grab the cable. Tight fit in there. I might've been able to loosen the display a bit more, but I didn't try. The cable is visible in the second image, just to the right of the left screw, going over the grey plastic connector.

Said cable needed to get into the ashtray area. There's a plastic cover hiding the spring that attaches to the tray cover; that required gently squeezing the clips on the bottom to pop it off. No drama. Then I drilled a 1/2" hole through the bottom corner. This is the third image.

I learned after doing that that the bottom piece of the ashtray area is aluminum. That got scratched a bit by the drill bit (and so is now shiny). It's not visible, however, with the remote display in place. These are the fourth and fifth images.

A couple more pictures with more text to follow.

 

The remote display fits perfectly, so the ashtray cover still closes nicely. Image one.

Finally, the question of where to get power. I got to cheat, as the K40 installer already grabbed the correct wires (or so I hope). The final image shows an orange with blue stripe wire all the way forward on the second grey connector (starting counting from the back, or left in this picture). The blue box at the top of the picture has a screw that's suitable for a ground wire.

All in all, a fairly easy installation. The tight A pillar cover was the only tricky part. Well, that and drilling on a piece of the interior.

 

Great work!

 

Thank you. Fingers crossed it works better than the K40 (not a tall order, really).

 

Another good place I got the ignition source from was the tire pressure module. Right around the same place you show.

 

Aren't detectors illegal in Virginia?

 

Yes, but so is speeding.

 

Sadly. Thus my interest in the remote display and pleasure in its perfect fit.

 

Don't they have radar detector detectors in VA though?

 

So I've heard. The Force has been with me for 10+ years so far. V1's are pretty well shielded. Hell, even the K40 wasn't mentioned during our chat.

You guys are trying to jinx me. 'Nuf said.

 

Generally only VSP uses radar detector detectors. Escort and Beltronics make radar detectors that are invisible to radar detector detectors. Beltronics STI series and Escort Redline and 9500CI (not 9500IX)

Great installation. V1 is a great detector.