I have a new to me 2015 Mini Countryman and I have installed a Garmin GPS. This GPS also has the ability to have a backup camera hooked up to it wirelessly. I have the BC30 wireless Garmin camera and it has two wires that need to be hooked up; a red (power) and a black (ground). My rear light wires are shown in the picture. There are 5 wires, of which none are red or black. I think the brown one is the ground, but am not sure. I want to tap into the reverse wire so that the camera will come on when my wife selects reverse. Any ideas on which wire to tap into for that?

Thanks for the help.

Joe

 

The wife and I tackled this project after lunch today. It took us about 2 hours to do the installation. To route the wires from the camera to the transmitter, I did have to drill one 5/16" hole in the rear crossmember. However, nothing shows so you cannot see the hole. Anyways, we attached the camera to the license plate, fished the wires up through the left license plate light. I did have to notch the light bracket to enable it to snap back into place with the camera wires running through the notch. Then up through the hole in the crossmember and into the bottom rear storage area. I connected the other set of wires for power to the blue wire in my picture that is in slot #3. The ground wire I just attached to one of the bolts coming in from the outside. I wrapped the ground wire to it and put a washer and nut on it and snugged it up. I put the little black box on the shelf area right behind the left rear seat. We then went up front, started the car, put it in reverse......and waalah, we had a backup picture on the Garmin 2589. What's neat is that as soon as you put it in reverse, the picture appears (well there is a second or two delay, I guess because of being wireless). As soon as you take it out of reverse and into drive, the backup picture goes away and the normal GPS screen takes it's place.

The picture quality is not the best. It is not as good as my built in backup camera in my 2017 Ram Laramie 3500, but it is better than the piece of crap picture we got in our previous Fiat 500L. We are going to enjoy the car even more as now we have a better vantage point for being aware of what's there when we are backing up.

Joe

 

Good to hear it isn't an all day job installing. I have one of the Garmin BC30's that I'm installing on a friends Buick. Our friend has a stiff neck where it's hard for her to twist her head to loook back. I thought it was gonna be a 1/2 day job getting it in minimum ... Thank God it isn't. Thanks for the info.

 

The hard part was getting underneath the car to try to see what I was doing. ha. I am a 64 year old man that is no longer very limber. These Mini Coopers are very low to the ground and there were times today when I was in one position and could not get into another position without crawling out and going under in a different direction as I was wedged in place. ha A younger couple could have done this more quickly than my wife and I. I am sure I am going to be sore tomorrow.

Joe

 

Your not alone Joe, I'm pushing 4 years older than you very very soon.
Even though it was fun then, all we did as a younger person is letting us know we did that now days.

 

i'd be interested to see pics of that install if you have any Joe.