***UPDATE***
I bought 2 x Garmin Mini 2 Dashcams for front and rear. Best price was on Garmin website - £79.99 pre-Christmas offer, currently £89.99.
I had them professionally fitted, so sorry no pictures of the actual fitting.
Here is the front dashcam - very discreet behind the rear view mirror.
The cable (supplied) was routed behind the headlining at the top of the screen and down the inside of the front passenger door rubber seal (the installer advised against running it down the plastic trim of the A-pillar in case it interfered with the airbag deployment). It then went into the side of the dash (the bit you can see when the front door is open) and was connected to fuse 51 behind the glovebox, which is the switched live to the 12v power socket in the centre console. This is the fuse identified in this thread.
https://www.golfmk8.com/forums/index.php?threads/fuse-for-dashcam.383420/#post-7617301
The rear dashcam was fitted in the centre of the rear windscreen (within the swept path of the rear wiper).
The cable was routed underneath the plastic trim above the tailgate window, and then through the rubber gaiter to the main body of the car. From there it went underneath the trim of the offside c-pillar where it could be plugged into the 12v socket in the boot using the adaptor supplied with the dash cam.
Took the auto-electrician just under an hour and half. He did a really tidy job.
Some observations in case they help anyone:
- The adhesive to stick the ball mount to the window glass is very strong. You need to be sure you've got the right position on the screen because you only get one attempt! Although there are two ball mounts supplied per dashcam.
- The mounts are fairly small. Luckily the adhesive part will fit between the heating elements on the rear screen with a couple of mm to spare either side. (I don't think it would be advisable to stick them over the element).
- The video image is good - 1080p HD. Not the highest quality available but a good compromise for the small size of the dash cam.
- You have to buy separately a micro SD card of sufficient quality for multiple read/writes. I bought two SanDisk Extreme 64GB cards for £11 each. The dashcam will overwrite the temporary images once the card becomes full. It will not overwrite any saved segments. You can save a segment by pressing a button on the dashcam, giving a voice command or if the dashcam detects a crash.
- The dash cams pair to the Garmin Drive app on your phone. This comes with a live view to allow you to position the dashcam on its ball mount to give the desired view.
- The Drive app also allows you to view the dashcam footage, and you can format the videos to provide a syncronised picture-in-picture view of the front and rear dashcams.
- You can also view the .mp4 files by removing the dashcam from its ball mount and plugging it into your PC, or by removing the SD card and doing the same.
I'm happy with this purchase and fitting. Above all I wanted a dashcam that was discreet. I didn't want one with a screen, which I feel is distracting. You use your phone as a screen when you need to. I didn't need one that would operate when the car is parked - we park overnight on our drive. That said, if required you can buy a Garmin parking cable which will allow it to operate with the ignition off.
Hope this may help some of you who are thinking about fitting a dashcam.
