Rear View safety Mercedes Sprinter Third Brake Light Backup Camera

Installed on a 2015 standard roof passenger Sprinter van. It comes with the wire and a gasket for the lens. You will have to remove the old lens and pull the LED array and clip it into the new lens/camera assembly. We used fish tape to pull a string between the headliner and roof. This will go from the front dome light recess area near the rear view mirror and out the back hole for the third brake light. This is fairly involved and the headliner will need to be unclipped in spots for access. When the string is in place, we cut the connector off one end of the camera cable so it could be pulled through all the tight spots and make it to the front. Once the cable was to the front, we soldered the wires to the end with the connector. We used a 5" monitor bought from Ebay and mounted it to the headliner near the dome light. Power for it was tapped from the front dome light line. It works great, even with the infrared LEDs at night. The camera angle can be adjusted down enough to look right down on your hitch. The camera is set up by default to not show the grid lines for backup guidance. If you want those to show up on your monitor, there is a small connector on the wiring at the camera that can be pulled out. This will then activate the grid lines. Be careful when you tighten up the two screws holding in the lens/camera assembly as it is not curved to fit the body like the factory lens is. Too tight and it may crack the plastic. I think this is a great way to get around the way too big and way too expensive factory camera setup.

I got this to replace a cheap-o license plate reverse camera that went stopped working. The only issue with this item is that it is not curved to match the body of my 2007 NVC. It is flat, so when the center touches the body, neither of the sides (where the holes are) touch the body (I don't know if it fits better on newer models). It didn't appear that the gasket would seal the unit, so I got some butyl tape, and built up a custom gasket to seal it. It looks OK, but it would have been better if it had the same curvature. A friend and I had done the wiring for the previous camera, so it was just a matter of hooking this unit up to the existing wiring. Other than the flat body, it's great! I just want to back the Sprinter up all the time to check out the view.

The camera checked out fine in a bench test...but the cable harness does not permit camera power to be drawn from a back up light at the rear of the vehicle. That would be SO MUCH EASIER than hunting for it under the dash, gear shift, fuse panel, or distribution panel.I have not mounted the camera yet but I can see the potential for water leaks. The light assembly is flat, the vehicle surface is curved, and the gasket material will not fill the gap. I may down grade this when the first leaks appear or I crack the assembly when tightening.

Nuce and clear

Fits well, Looks good, Camera resolution NOT crisp. Prying out the old led bar and installing it in the camera unit was a little challenging. It gets the job done, and I like the position of the camera. If the image was more crisp it would be 4 stars easy.

The first one failed just about at the end of its warranty period. Replaced and this one is working just fine (again) - but we'll see if it can last longer than 14 months.