So I ended up finding a camera and snatched it up. $400 for a fisheye camera and cable with some zip types and sticky zip tye mounts, crazy.
The directions are a joke, they tell you to not route the cable under the trailer, instead they want you to use sticky zip tye mounts and run the cable down the side of the trailer, or on the roof. What?! I ran mine under the trailer along the other wires and secured it to the frame with rubber/stainless cable clamps. You cannot cut or modify the wire so you end up with a ton of extra wire, I coiled mine just behind the tongue underneath and secured it well. The camera and mount together are obnoxiously huge, and the bracket is steel with factory chips and cracks in the paint, so it’s sure to rust after the first rain.
In order to have the “invisible trailer” mode, you need to run the cable across your door and mount this giant camera mount on the middle of the door. I have barn doors on this trailer and it had to be mounted right by the handle that would hit the camera regularly. Stupid. I ended up taking the camera out of the mount, grabbed Some scrap aluminum square tube and welded up my own mount. I ran the cable inside the rear vertical post, inside the horizontal upper rail, and poked the wire out just above the doors. This is a MUCH better place to have the camera and it’s tiny, can’t even notice it if you weren’t looking for it.
Do I wish I had the “invisible trailer” mode, sure, it’s cool, but this is much more functional for a trailer that actually gets used. I can still activate the camera at any time and it is amazing for when I have to parallel park my truck and trailer on jobs in the city. I can back right up to a car or dumpster and not have to get out multiple times to check how close I am. Using it while driving is nice, but the depth perception of how close a car is behind you is so far off.
Now for the cons. The whole system absolutely sucks. There are days when it’s cold and I can barely pull the camera plug out of the plug on the bumper, and it hasn’t even gotten very cold yet. The camera integration is horrible beyond description. What do we do when we need a trailer? We start our truck, back up to the trailer and hook it up and go. Well, that won’t work if you want to use the camera. Instead, start truck, backup to trailer, hook up, try camera, doesn’t work. Turn truck off, wait with door open for truck to reset, restart truck, try camera, sometimes it works, sometimes you have to turn truck off again. Then if it does finally recognize the camera sometimes the screen will still be black and no image. Then when it finally does work and you can select the camera from the “cameras” screen, you cannot select it from within the trailering screen app under the cameras. It will not show up as being connected. So back to the main screen, select cameras, then rear trailer view. It is a complete joke, all of it.
This kit should be $150. There is nothing amazing about it. It barely works. The process to get the truck to recognize it is maddening as all get-out, especially in the winter when I’m running back and forth plugging and unplugging the trailer cable and camera cables, turning the truck on and off, opening the door so that the truck “resets”, and basically adding stupid amounts of time and aggravation to my morning. I’m honestly amazed that GM would release the truck with such a terrible interface.
That‘s my experience and thoughts, if you have any questions let me know.
