I used a V1 some years back in my first MINI, but retired it for the last several years. Now that I'm motivated to reinstall it (because reasons) in curious about subtle installation positions. I've seen the threads where people mounted them in the grill or in the back seat headrests etc and used the remote display to interact with it, but seems to me if you're going to use a Valentine you should give it the four-way access that is its principle selling point. In the past I just mounted it right under the mirror but it was fairly obtrusive and I couldn't deal with the power cable in a graceful manner. I'm wondering if folks have found good solutions for effective mounting where the power was tucked into the panels sufficiently so you don't have a cable dangling over the dash. I've also seen a lot of talk about the vertical mount option on one of the product specific forums. I've thought about using that and tucking to the drivers corner of the windshield pillar.
Ideas?

 

Not sure of the best placement, but I prefer to keep my V1 on the passenger side sunshade and off the windshield. It is far enough back that it is not visible from the street. I hid the cable by running it from the glove box, up behind the pillar, and above the headliner (accessed by removing the sunshade screws from part 3 below) I was able to have the wire simply falls out from the headliner where the sunshade is fastened. Instead of hard wiring it directly to the fuse box, I tapped a fuse and installed a dual 12V outlet in the glove box. I then plug into one of the outlets. I also ran a second wire from the glovebox to the center dash for the remote display. Overall, there are no wires visible.

 

I have mine up to the left of the rear view mirror.

 

Mine fits between the top of the mirror and the roof of the car. Not much room there but its perfect when the power cable is run up the A pillar and across the top of the windshield.

 

You want V1 (or any other radar detector) to be positioned as high as possible in the car, with an unobstructed field of view for the antenna. For V1, that means maximum view front and back (V1 has 2 antennas vs. other detectors). The second consideration is ability to access the control **** to mute the alarms, as necessary. You could use a remote control for that (I do on 1 of my 3 V1 equipped cars), or you could mount the detector within physical reach of your hand.

Net net, I mounted all my V1's in the middle of the windshield, either right above the rear view mirror (if there was space), or the the left of it. This way both front and rear antennas have the best possible view.

In all cars, I wired them to pickup 12V from either the maps light or sunroof wiring harness. Both are easily accessible under the roof liner (usually you can remove map lights panel to get ample access to splice the wires). Both are usually powered with ignition, so V1 comes on every time you start the car, and shuts down to avoid draining the battery with ignition off.

Side mounting would be OK for front detection, but will degrade rear antenna sensitivity.

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mine is between the roof and the rear view mirror, and im powering from the lights with the rear view mirror attachment

 

^that
You don't really see it unless you're looking for it.

 

Thanks these are great!

 

Another vote for between the roof and the rear view mirror. I'm running the power from a wire in the roof. You can hardly see it from the outside and it is not in the line of sight of the driver at all. Love my V1! It has saved my bacon many times.

 

What wire did you tap to, Reebus?