Rear-View Camera Review:
The one thing I haven't liked about driving my Fleet/Tacoma rig was the poor rear vision. I could see a little of the road behind in the inside rear-view mirror, down the aisle of the camper, but it was pretty limited. I felt a little uneasy driving that way. Larger, wider outside mirrors, that flip out, helped a lot but the situation was still far from ideal. So, I finally invested in a rear-view camera and monitor. So much better! Now, I'm totally comfortable driving my rig.
The setup I got was from a company called Rear View Safety. It seems to be very well made and this company's customer service was good. Now that I have it, the ~$270 price seems totally worth it.
I mounted the the monitor atop the dashboard with an adjustable bracket that I had to buy in addition to the camera/monitor kit. The clip-on (to the truck mirror) monitor turned out not to be a good choice. When the monitor is in place, I remove the inside mirror, improving my forward vision, too. The monitor is plenty bright and dims automatically when it gets dark. The display is not super high-resolution, but it's certainly adequate. Brightness, contrast, and a bunch of other settings are adjustable with a small remote or with buttons on the monitor. Infared LEDs in the camera light up the scene behind the truck at night.
The monitor is wired into the backup light circuit and provides a set of adjustable grid lines on the display when in reverse, to help with backing. There is also a microphone in the camera and a speaker in the monitor. These come on in reverse, with adjustable volume, so you can hear someone giving directions when backing.
I mounted the camera right above the camper door, in the center of the camper, using one existing screw and one new screw. I made a bracket, but could probably have gotten by with the bracket that came with the camera. My mount is very solid, so the camera doesn't bounce around. I ran the cable into the camper through a hole in the rear wall and into the gas bottle compartment, where it plugs into the cable from the truck. Inside the compartment, this connection is out of the weather. When the camper is off the truck, the end of the truck cable stores in one of the the small compartments in the wall of the Tacoma bed. The monitor also unplugs, so I remove it from the mount and re-install the inside mirror.
All-in-all, it's a good, high-quality setup, which I would recommend.
- Bernard
