Just bought a Garmin C550 from Buy.com
http://www.buy.com/retail/product.as...694364#moreimg

$180 refurb w/ 1-year warranty.

Thinking about mounting it in the car, and how it would be nice to hardwire the power into the car, rather than just plugging it into the cigarette lighter.

Has anyone done a hard-wired method yet? I know radioshack sells these vampire clips that latch onto the power outlet cord and can power a auxilary device, I was thinking of using something like that and mounting it all cleanly behind the dash.

Just looking for pics/ideas on how you guys mounted yours, thanks!

 

I hardwired my cobra to my DD a while back. Its a corolla, but it still applies. I went to radioshack to buy a 12V car lighter extension

http://www.radioshack.com/product/in...entPage=search

Then I plugged my cobra into the radioshack receptacle. I cut off the male radioshack end and then tied the Positive wire into the car ignition wire for power and the negative wire to a ground. Works awesome. Just be careful to make sure you know which is positive and negative once you cut the radioshack cord because they aren't labeled!!! Actually one of the cut wires looked like it had a white stripe on it, but that actually turned out to be the positive wire. Just be sure before you fire it up.

The reason i bought the extension instead of cutting the power cord from the cobra is because I might want to use it in another car later on. Also, i read that some of those lighter adapters contain fuses and other stuff that keep your unit from frying. For $8, its better just to sacrafice the radioshack cord.

Hope that made sense.

 

Most of the GPS companies have hard wire kits. I have one in my Mustang so I don't have wires hanging all over. And I have one in my Mountaineer where it stays must of the time.