No pictures, but the job turned out well (met my unusually festidious criteria for neatness).

Escort 8500 hard-wire self-instal:

First, the cable: approx. 10' of Shaxon UL300-4BK (#E134689) BLACK telephone cable w/standard RJ-11 phone connector on one end, wired left-to right 'Yellow-Green-Red-Black' as viewed with the cord in your hand and the connector facing away from you, looking down on the gold connector pins. Don't worry about being able to see all the wires, as long as yellow is on your left and black is on your right, with the release-tit facing down you're good-to-go.

By the way, this matters as std. phone cords are actually "crossover" cables. meaning that they are wired exactly opposite at the two ends. Technically you could use either, but doing so will require swapping the red & green wires when making the 12v connections.

Start at the end of the cable opposite the connector we just identified above. We'll want to open-up (expose) about 6-to-8 inches of the colored wires. Do this by scoring the outer black jacket with a really sharp knife or razor blade. Be careful to only cut through the outer jacket.

- important here, we'll only need the red & green wires, red=+12v and green = ground. (assumes connector wiring is oriented as explained in the first paragraph). However, in any case you can cut off the yellow and black wires, but leave 1 about 1/4 inch longer than the other so when we tape them up they cannot accidentally short together. It's important that they be taped because when the radar detector is pplugged in an working there is actually some control voltage on the yellow & black leads, so separate them and tape them up.

Use a small knife blade or miniature screwdriver blade to (gently) pry open the screw covers above & below the driver's-side grab handle on the A-Pillar. Use a 10mm socket to remove the bolts holding the grab handle to the A-pillar. Once the two bolts are removed, take hold of the grab handle & pull (this may require a little effort). Once removed, you can use a trouble light or flashlight to see that there is now plenty of room to easily snake your power cord down through and into the under-dash area.

Routing the wire: I pulled out the overhead console just to make it a little easier to route the wire inside the headliner & out through the notch in the front edge that the electronic mirror cable would use. I had the radar detector already in place on the windshield so I could judge how much cable length to leave. We don't want this "fiddle-string" tight so we can easily plug & unplug the R/D. Using 1 minuature tie-wrap I tied my power cable to one of the wire looms inside the overhead console (to prevent it from being accidentally pulled down) then routed it under the headliner over to the A-Pillar.

Route your R/D power cable along the existing wires already there. Use 3 minuature tie-wraps to secure your cable at the 3 plastic cable supports. (make it neat). When replacing the grab handle you may have to coax the lip of the rubber door seal over the left hand edge of it before reinstalling the two 10mm bolts.

Down under the dash the goal here is to find a ciruit that supplies switched 12v power only in the "run" position, in other words, one that goes on and off with the ignition switch when the motor is running. There is a small pink wire in the loom going over to the brake pedal stop-light switch that can be used. Be careful when routing your R/D power wire to avoid any moveable parts (emergency brake, etc) that could wear against or pinch & cut your wire.

Making the physical connection: Everyone has their own idea here, but I prefer to remove (carefully cut away) some of the tape on the wire loom so I can ever-so-carefully score the insulation on the pink wire allowing me to pull the insulation back exposing only about 1/8 inch of the bare copper. Don't cut it! With a little of the pink wire's copper exposed I wrap my +12 (red) R/D power wire tightly around the exposed copper AND THEN SOLDER IT using just a tiny bit of resin-core solder and a hot pencil-tip soldering iron (if you used more than 1/2" of solder, you used too much). We just want barely enough solder to 'flow' onto the wires without creating a "glob" - yes, another one of the things I'm a little **** about. Neatness counts. The job should not look like you used bar solder with paste flux and a hot rock.

Grounding the green wire: Under the dash there is a huge expanse of bare metal, all of which is "vehicle ground" so find a convenient spot and firmly attach your wire, either using a crip-on connector & bolt through an existing unused hole as I did or tie it into any one of the many other wires you see that all go to a common ground point using the score & solder method detailed above.

Final lead-dress & neatening things up: I used nothing but BLACK miniature tie-wraps (available from Home Depot, Lowes, Ace Hdwe, etc) and cut the tails off using a pair of full flush-cutting wire cutters (full flush cut so there's no knuckle-scraping tip-ends). The black wire and black tie wraps I think make it a more professional-looking job. Also put just a tiny amount of tape over your solder connections. We don't need to "wrap" these with half a roll of tape, just a simple one piece 'flap' will normally suffice. (same for the tip-ends of our unused yellow & black wires in our power cable.

Back on top I used 1 miniature black tie-wrap to secure the black power wire to the black rear-view mirror post. Looks great & works perfect. The R/D does not come-on in the 'accessory' key position, only when the key is in the full 'run' position. This allows you to sit in the truck listening to your music without having to listen to your R/D going nuts.

Total time to install: With everything you need rounded-up and handy, the job will take approx 90 minutes +/- your agility & skill level. Would have been much less except these 65-yr old bones aren't quite as agile as they once were.

.

 

I was being lazy so I had a car stereo place wire my detector in, if I were doing it myself I would have used the Mirror tap available on Amazon.

The thing I found which annoyed me that it was so expensive but I had to have it anyway was a Blendmount (also on amazon). Its a metal clamp that attaches to the mirror and hold the detector below it perfectly without the suction cups. Those things drive me nut falling off all the time. My Passport 9500ix is rock solid and helps me stay away from being revenue opportunity to the locals

 

I just use a battery operated detector. No muss...no fuss. The rechargeable batteries last for months before recharging.

 

At the risk of this sounding like a commercial endorsement... My wife had the SOLO (battery operated detector) in her car but it's range was marginal, at best. After I put a 9500ix in my Ram then she insisted on having something (anything) better for her car. We tried a new S3 then returned it and got her the new 8500-X50

I have to say that the SOLO S3 was a 'slight' improvement over the S2 (mostly better battery life) but performance didn't begin to compare with either the 9500ix or 8500-X50. The 9500ix, albeit somewhat pricey also learns where the false alarms are and now remains completely silent past those locations. Escort will also tell you that detection range on their hardwired detectors is much superior to that of their cordless models.

Unarguably it's a trade-off, you sacrifice sensitivity for convenience. My wife and I both hated always having to remember to turn on the SOLO everytime we got in the car. Hardwired is the way to go.

 

Suction cups fall off mainly for several reasons, the most common being they're either old and dried out (lost their elasticity) or the glass and suction cups weren't clean when initially attached. The secret is an alcohol swab (not hand sanitizer). After first cleaning the windshield with your favorite glass cleaner then use a cotton ball dipped in rubbing alcohol (wrung out, almost dry) to swab both the spot on the glass and the suction cups.

Properly cleaned, they'll generally stay put until you peel them off. I discovered this trick with my first window-mount Nav unit and fought it for months until someone told me about the alcohol trick.

Also another tip: When it's time for new suction cups (every couple years) you can find them dirt cheap among the Xmas decorations at Home Depot, Lowes & Ace hdwe. They come with little S-hooks on them for attaching xmas lights to glass surfaces (i.e., windows & doors). They're not exact replacements, but close enough, and like I say, a fraction of the cost (for a package of 5).

The Blendmount is a clever design but for 80 bux it's way overpriced.