rearview camera wiring

My Pacifica did not come with the rear-view camera option, however it can be ordered. The factory camera is advertised as plug and play, which makes me think that a circuit for the backup lights (trigger for camera) might be present in the lift door. I bought a third party GPS/rear view camera, and want to know how to access that circuit, if indeed it exists. Can anyone give me a little direction as to how to tie a licence plate mounted camera into that reversing circuit?

Remove the panel from the inside of the door and see if there is an unused harness floating around in the area of the license plate. If there is, using a volt meter verify that one of the wires get 12 volts on it when the vehicles reverse lights come on.

Your username suits me better than it does you. To me your instruction sounds a bit like a manual which begins, "With the engine dismantled..." :) It's not that I'm not willing to try, but the back panel of the door gives me no clues as to how to remove and reinstall it. Has anyone here removed the rear panel of the Pacifica and lived to talk about it, or is there a manual of some kind I can refer to?

I did some research for you on the Chrysler forum, turns out there have been 4 people that have attempted to remove the panel, and you guessed, none have lived to tell about it.  So it is probably a good thing you didn't try.   Can you take a few pictures of the panel?  You probably won't be able to post them here, if you take them I will give you an e-mail address to send them to.

Thanks! I'll try and get some pictures after the snow storm that's supposed to blow in this afternoon - perhaps on the weekend. I appreciate the offer.

Unfortunately i doubt there will be wiring for a camera there, and even if there was it would take more than just a connection to make it work. Like most factory navs, an interface will be required. I have yet to see one available over the counter for Chrysler navs like most others do. There is an interface called TVtoNav that is supposed to work on them, but it requires the nav to be shipped to them for internal changes. This i don't care for and here's why. Icon does this also, and we sent them a Toyota nav to get prepped for video. The nav came back with multiple issues and we had a huge problem with the customer. It took 4 times back to finally get it right, we never shipped one again after that.

That said, i am surprised PAC hasn't made some type of interface for them. They seem to make them for cars that are much more scarce, like Audi, but not Ford or Chrysler.

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Mike M2
Tech Manager
CS Dealer Services

The camera I am hoping to use isn't OEM. It uses 2.4 MHz wireless technology to relay the picture to the supplied monitor. All I need is the trigger/power source from the backup light to make it work. Since the car comes with a nav/camera option, I'm guessing that the wire harness is universal and has the unused tap for the OEM camera already in place. This suspicion was reinforced by an ad for another camera from the OEM which it describes as "plug and play." Given these assumptions, my first problem becomes to locate a circuit in the liftgate to use as a trigger. I would like (a) to get confirmation that the circuit is there, and (b) the easiest way to get to it from near the license plate-mounted camera.

Thanks for your input. In a factory unit, I'd guess the signal between camera and display is done by coax cable or somesuch. I'm not going to have to deal with that or with built-in nav issues. My system is entirely independent of the car's systems other than a connection to the backup light.

Are the reverse lights on the rear door? If all you need is power for it from the reverse wire, you may have to run a wire from the reverse light, (wherever it may be mounted) to the license plate location, wherever that may be. I am assuming the frame is on the rear door and the lights are on the body of vehicle.   Is the rear door electrically connected to the vehicle via a rubber boot or a series of pins and pads? Open the door and look near the hinges to see if you can locate the wires that go into the door.