WTF The Dashcam

[qberg]

I've made my purchase, but I had to pass on a dashcam optioned vehicle that was otherwise what I wanted at a good price. Had a long meeting with the mechanic who was not willing to move or remove the unit. It is beyond my comprehension how Toyota could make such a mistake.

The camera is added by the distributor as a port installed option (PIO). The dealership paid the distributor for the car and thus paid for the camera as installed. The dealership isn't going to remove it for you AND not charge you for an accessory that they've already paid for. Even if they added it to another car, it would cost them the labor to uninstall and reinstall. At that point, they may as well just take the L and let you negotiate down by some amount to just accept the car as is if they are desperate enough to move the car. More likely, they'll just sell it to someone else.

The purpose of the camera is to boost the sticker and add profit at the distributor and the dealership. They know that most people will get "close enough" on a spec (trim and color) and just deal with it. Only way to fight back is to tell the dealer that is why you didn't buy the car and hopefully the dealer factors that into how they spec their allocations in the future or push that back to the distributors. You'll also notice that accessories vary by region. Gulf States and South East are the absolute worst about loading up every vehicle with accessories. They even have psuedo trim packages that boost that sticker price with high cost, low value items.

 

[glibglob]

Here are the after photos. What an improvement for the driver. We will see if my wife is OK with this otherwise it's getting sold

 

[Canuckian]

My Dealer is telling me they wont install it on the passenger side because they don't know if it will impact the "pre-collision system". Has anyone else been told this? And what part of the "pre-collision system" are they talking about on the right side on that part of the Windshield?

 

[ultane]

Has anyone brought up the new Garmin Dashcam systems?

 

[glibglob]

My Dealer is telling me they wont install it on the passenger side because they don't know if it will impact the "pre-collision system". Has anyone else been told this? And what part of the "pre-collision system" are they talking about on the right side on that part of the Windshield?

I’m no expert but I can’t see why that would matter. That appears to be based on stuff in the grill and the camera that is centered on the window… I just drove 200 miles with mine on the passenger side and no issues cruising or in traffic jams with all systems active.

 

[ricochet]

I've made my purchase, but I had to pass on a dashcam optioned vehicle that was otherwise what I wanted at a good price. Had a long meeting with the mechanic who was not willing to move or remove the unit. It is beyond my comprehension how Toyota could make such a mistake.

My only explanation is that the dashcam was originally intended to use the existing camera system, and the ridiculous hardware glued to the windshield was a last minute fix forced by internal politics. Or perhaps indicative of heavy drug use by the responsible designers and engineers . Toyota should drug test the entire approval chain responsible for such a POS.

I don't think they ever planned to use the integrated cameras since they've had other (even worse) versions available in the past on other vehicles. This is just how they do dash cams. I have one on mine.