Cigarette lighter?

[Mike Fishcake]

Bit of a weird question, but some of you car people might know the answer :-)

My mum's looking at getting TomTom Go 300 for her car, but her little old Micra doesn't have a cigarette lighter. How mcuh do you reckon a garage would / should charge to fit one?

Bear in mind there's no way on this earth that I could fit it myself.

[XTR]

£30 at the max!

[5lab]

or just hard-wire it in imo. a neater solution

[autopilot]

or just hard-wire it in imo. a neater solution

Yeah, that would be the best solution. Just do it so its nice and easy to remove for security.

[Hans Gruber]

I'd go for the hard wiring. Unless the car already has a blanking plate for the cigarette lighter you'll need to cut a nasty hole in the dash somewhere for it.

[inder]

Hard wire it directly to the battery, on a fused link - must be somewhere you can pass the wire through the bulkhead into the car. Make sure you use wire of the correct rating/thickness depending on the draw required.

It the OEM place for the cig lighter is there, you could get the part from them and wire it up (still on battery, not sure if the loom would be present, if had no cig lighter in first place)

[herulach]

If you get it from halfords they advertise free fitting, so you might be able to con them into doing it

Failing that, doesnt it even have a socket in the glovebox?

You might get away without it, since they have about a 6 hour battery life, and a mains charger, but i suppose it depends on how her driving is.

[tiggerai]

CAn buy them for about £4, i got one for xmas...

Dad fitted it.

Micras don't come with them fitted as standard, I got mine done for this exact reason. (apart from it was a minidisc player...)

As far as i recall, the hole and blanking plate for it is already there, no cutting required. and the wires are already accessible (afaik)

[herulach]

CAn buy them for about £4, i got one for xmas...

Dad fitted it.

Micras don't come with them fitted as standard, I got mine done for this exact reason. (apart from it was a minidisc player...)

As far as i recall, the hole and blanking plate for it is already there, no cutting required. and the wires are already accessible (afaik)

Is it a dealer option then?
But yeah, you can get them from maplin for about a fiver. Speak nicely to the guy on the components deks and hell probably fit it for a tenner as well i know i would have done when i was there.

[Hans Gruber]

Failing that, doesnt it even have a socket in the glovebox?

You should see my Renault 5, no lighter and no glove box

[herulach]

You should see my Renault 5, no lighter and no glove box

Yeah but thats french, what do you expect? Cheating gits are always trying to do us out of stuff.

[inder]

In that case solder said wires to tom toms wires.

ensure fuse for the cig lighter is in the fuse box hehe and correct value for tom tom first

[autopilot]

Yeah but thats french, what do you expect?

I'd expect 10 fag lighters in a French car. Smoking is thier national sport!

[5lab]

tomtom do actually do a rather nice dashmount kit, complete with audio muting

[Mike Fishcake]

Hard wire it directly to the battery, on a fused link - must be somewhere you can pass the wire through the bulkhead into the car. Make sure you use wire of the correct rating/thickness depending on the draw required.

It the OEM place for the cig lighter is there, you could get the part from them and wire it up (still on battery, not sure if the loom would be present, if had no cig lighter in first place)

*stares blankly*

Thanks, but

Bear in mind there's no way on this earth that I could fit it myself.

Cheers for all your responses people - never even thought of looking in places like Maplin or other component suppliers TBH (we use a couple of different places at work, i'll try those). Regards fitting it, I guess I'll have to ask around. If there's a local garage that won't take the mickey with the price, I suppose she could do that.

Ta!