Integral Microwave Receiver
 

This is a "thank you!!" to everyone who has posted on this forum and others (notably the A6/S6 Forum) their experiences with hard-wiring radar detectors. Based on reading all this stuff, I screwed up my courage today and did mine (a Passport 8500). It actually turned out to be anti-climactic -- and it's so easy, I'm surprised everyone doesn't do it.

I chose the fuse-tap approach, to make the installation 100% reversible, and, following April's lead, put it on the left side of the dash, kind of snugged up next to the front left pillar. (This minimized the amount of wire I had to hide.) It's stuck to the dash with a combination of closed-cell foam (a little platform)and velcro.

The allroad design (and probably this is the A6 design also) makes this easy, with the fuse access/panel at the left end of the dash. I used the mirror heater circuit. Escort has a hard-wire kit that includes an in-line tap, so I had to buy a fuse tap. And the in-line tap connector and the fuse-tap connector were, naturally, different, so the only wire I had to cut was to remove the bullet connector on the fuse tap so I could crimp on a female spade connector.

Again: Thank you all! HPH