Tentatively think I 'fixed' my rear view camera.
Beginning of the year, it started to become a bit intermittent. Would always work fine when I got in the car, but after a 40 minute drive to work, I'd notice as I parked up, it wouldn't come on. At the end of the day, I'd get in the car and it was fine...then as I got home and went to park outside, it wasn't working again. Found out that there's a diagnostic mode on the head unit (hold Net/Prev track buttons, then press the tuning knob in twice) which allows you to bring up the camera view permanently. Drove around with it on so I could see when the feed dropped. Seemed to happen over bumps. Broken wire somewhere?
Thinking it might be the camera itself I took a punt on a replacement from an eBay scrapper. Swapped it over and it worked and seemed fine for a couple of days. Result! Nope....went to park one evening, put it in reverse and nothing. Lost my temper and reflexively, I tapped the front of the headunit...and the camera came on! So hopefully just a loose plug?
Next day, I took the dash apart and then, while I had the ignition on and the diagnostic mode active, I pulled the head unit out. I could see as I manipulated it that the camera kept cutting out. I don't quite know what I did, except unplug and re-seat several of the connectors in the back, until I could move the head unit around without the camera feed dropping, then put it all back together.
This was about a month ago, and so far, it's been good as gold. Hasn't failed to initialise once, even after longer drives. So hopefully it was just a case of a poorly seated connector. Not sure how it could have got like that, perhaps I hit a pothole or something.
Anyway...it all came at a cost. Replacement camera I didn't need was £81. When when I took the head unit out, I managed to scratch the bevel around he starter button. £67 for a replacement from a scrappy :/ If only my first instinct had been to just smack the headunit like an old TV that's lost signal. Still, at least it's fixed.
