shawnvm,
I will give that cover a good pull this weekend.
Thank you for the information. I felt that it was just a clip, but it is always better to ask now than be sorry later.
There might be some confusion here as I jumped in on an old thread. I'm actually going to put in a double recepticle for a cooler and cell phone charger.

 

That definitely did it! Thanks so much!

 

I want to hardwire a garmin nuvi and pull of the rear view mirror plug. What do I need to do?

 

Invisicord is a company that sells the harness made for radar detectors that will do this. AFAIK, they don't make that for Garmin, but for very low dollars, they probably would. I'm not sure what the power connector for your Garmin looks like, but it's probably nothing special. Basically, they make short cords that will stab into the plug on the back of the mirror and have the correct power connector for your radar detector on the other end. I'd contact them and check it out, the cord for my Passport was only $15.00. http://www.invisicord.com/ If nothing else, they can give you a "blank" that will have the connectors that will piggy back into the mirror plug.

 

I would be careful with this. Most of the Garmins use a Mini-USB connector that by spec only provides 5VDC. I have never measured my car adapter, but I would guess that there is some kind of voltage reducing circuitry in the power plug for the GPS. Radar detectors however (at least Escort, Bel and Valentine), use 12VDC so they can be wired directly into the mirror.

 

Correct. This pre-supposes that you need the full 12VDC for whatever you want to wire in to the mirror, and that current draw is no more than a few dozen milliamps max.

 

can i use this connector to power a stereo unit