Dashcam installation on my Mahindra XUV 700

This is clearly a vehicle built for the highways. Both passengers didn't feel any fatigue after driving 600km.

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It's been a busy few weeks and I haven't been able to update my ownership, as much as I would have liked. Red Rage has been scorching the roads offlate and I am one super happy guy these days, especially after the almighty whispers "You look sexy, when you drive this XUV". I don't know if she's complimenting the Machine or the Man.

From time immemorible, we have been driving with the extra luggage a.k.a kids and it's always been a sedate, often cautious ride all along. In the meantime the Almighty has been hearing horror stories, from my friends, about me driving or rather on suicide missions on my RX100 during my younger days and she couldn't possibly fit me(who right after marriage, shifted to a Boxer CT100) in to this crazy-rider image. I think she took those, as friends-trying-to-ruin-your-marriage tactics.

For the first time, in a very long time, we had to dash off to a place, with out the luggage (read kids). And be back before nightfall, which meant covering 600 odd km in under 6 hours (excluding the quick business at hand)

I don't know if it was the dormant energy, or the "couples time", or the pleasant roads or a combination of all, the journey along this route brought out the "Driver". While driving in Trichy (mostly pick and drop duties) I'm super focused, cautious and of course cursing all the way. But not this time. I got to tease other drivers, pass comments on anything that moved, push the XUV to it's limits. Felt pure pleasure driving a car.

I still wonder, how Mahindra pulled off this beast of a Petrol engine. The acceleration is mind-blowing, braking is precise and above all the suspension is heavenly. I'll elaborate on the suspension in a little while, but the brakes need a special mention. One more than one occasion, I had to hard brake, break so hard that the hazard lights came off automatically. This partly owing to poorly placed barricades and partly to my "enthusiastic" driving. If it had been another 2 tonne vehicle, I'm not sure if it would have stopped to avoid a crash.

This is clearly a vehicle built for the highways. We both didn't feel any fatigue after driving these 600km. Such is the front row seat comfort.

Dashcam Setup

After deliberating for almost 6 months, bought the 70mai Pro Plus+ A500S Dual Channel Car Dash Cam. I wanted to film the installation to show you guys and was hoping I can complete in 30 mins. Uh ! No. It took me under 10 minutes !! I setup the Timelapse for every 30 seconds and here is the video output. Feels like a lightening setup. Eh ?

The real cam cable was more than enough to cover the full length of the XUV.

It was pretty easy doing it myself with the prying tool. Here are some photos illustrating the wiring path for rear camera.

And the view of the rear camera profile from inside and outside.

The dangling loose wire is an eye sore. But then if I had to make this vanish, I had to taken out the boot door trim, which I was not ready. Yet !.

Initially I had left the front camera wire dangling behind the mirror, to connect to the USB drive. However the Almighty was mighty displeased with the setup.

I was sceptical of the length of the front camera cable reaching to the charging point through the passenger side, but it turned out just fine. Here are the photos of the front camera profile from outside and the the wiring path.

You may notice a slight profusion on the left hand side, but barely noticeable. Picture of "wired" area and non wired area for comparison.

I now have a thumbs from the Almighty on the neat setup. Even though I wanted a parking setup and is in fact what I bought, I have not got the confidence to mess with the fuses yet and may take a few more months to play around before installing the parking monitor.

The video/camera quality is satisfactory. While reading number plates is not straight forward and easy from the rear cam, it can be done.

The video quality around noon time, where there's dashboard reflection was minimal and so didn't invest in a CPL filter. Keeping it simple for now.

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