The device itself is only part of the job. What determines whether you have a problem in two years is the circuit it's wired to, whether it sleeps properly, whether the ground is clean, and whether anyone documented it. That is the work, and it is what we do.
The clearest evidence that telematics installation is a specialist trade is that the industry publishes standards for it.
The ATA's Technology & Maintenance Council maintains recommended practices covering exactly this work:
| RP | Scope |
|---|---|
| **RP 1206** | Placement and structural requirements for heavy-duty navigation and communication devices — including cab power and ground provisioning for end-user-installed equipment |
| **RP 1207A** | Cab electronic accessory power interface — how OEM wiring should support aftermarket equipment |
| **RP 111B** | Circuit protection for heavy-duty truck-tractor DC wiring |
| **RP 112A** | Terminals for heavy-duty truck-tractor primary wiring |
| **RP 158** | Wiring and circuit protection for 12-volt cab and sleeper power outlets |
| **RP 166** | Low-voltage primary electrical cable specification |
| **RP 105D** | Battery cable assemblies for maximum cranking circuit performance |
An industry body does not write a dedicated recommended practice for plugging something into a port.
The most common complaint after a bad telematics rollout is batteries going flat over weekends.
Here's the thing: it usually isn't the device's rated draw. Geotab's GO9 specification lists **1.5 mA at sleep** against 60–300 mA active. A milliamp and a half will not flatten a commercial battery over a long weekend.
What does:
All three are workmanship. The manufacturer's own spec sheet is the evidence that the hardware isn't the problem.
**What a careful installer does:** measure the vehicle's baseline parasitic draw before installation, measure again after, and record the delta. That turns a future argument into a number.
We should be honest that there's no published industry-standard maximum draw for commercial vehicles that we could verify — the thresholds you see quoted come from trade and consumer repair content, not from a standards body. So the right practice isn't hitting a magic number; it's documenting the change your work caused.
A connection can look perfect and still be bad under load. Resistance doesn't show up until current flows.
Vehicle manufacturers publish the test for this. Volkswagen's service documentation, for example, specifies connecting a meter in parallel with the energised circuit under load, and states that **voltage drop on starter circuits should not exceed 0.5 V** on either the positive or the ground path.
The same method proves an added telematics or camera circuit isn't starving a shared load or sitting on a marginal ground. A shop that voltage-drop-tests its own work has objective evidence. One that doesn't is relying on the fact that it powered up.
**Devices that stop reporting intermittently.** Usually a marginal ground or a connection that vibrates loose. The frustrating part is that it reports fine for months first.
**Batteries that fail early.** See above.
**Warranty friction.** When a vehicle develops an electrical fault, aftermarket wiring is the first thing anyone looks at. Neat, fused, documented, standards-compliant work is defensible. A splice buried in a loom is not.
**Data that's subtly wrong.** An auxiliary input wired to the wrong circuit will report something. It just won't report what you think. A PTO input actually connected to a work light gives you a beautifully consistent, entirely useless dataset — and you may not notice for a year.
**Corrosion.** In coastal markets this is not theoretical. Charleston Harbor reached flood stage 54 times in 2024, and vehicles working there regularly drive through standing saltwater. Unsealed connections fail at the connector, not at the device.
An authorized installer has been through the manufacturer's certification for that platform and is held to their installation standards. Practically, it means the person fitting your hardware has been trained on that specific device rather than generalising from another one.
It also means there's a defined path when something is genuinely a hardware fault rather than an installation fault — which matters more than it sounds, because arguing about which one it is can otherwise take weeks.
This is our standard, on every unit, without being asked:
None of it is exotic. It is simply the difference between work that is still fine in three years and work that generates a service call in eighteen months — and it is why fleets call us back.
Almost never because of their rated draw — Geotab's GO9 draws 1.5 mA asleep. Drain problems come from wiring the device to a constant-hot circuit that should have been switched, or from a bad ignition-sense connection that stops the device sleeping, so it sits at 60–300 mA continuously. That's an installation fault, not a hardware fault.
It measures resistance in a circuit under load, which is the only way to catch a connection that looks fine but isn't. Vehicle manufacturers publish the procedure — Volkswagen's specifies no more than 0.5 V drop on starter circuits, positive or ground. The same test proves an added circuit isn't starving a shared load.
Yes. The ATA's Technology & Maintenance Council publishes recommended practices covering it, including RP 1206 on placement and structural requirements for heavy-duty navigation and communication devices and RP 1207A on the cab electronic accessory power interface, plus a family of RPs on circuit protection, terminals and cable specification.
Photo documentation per vehicle, parasitic draw measured before and after with the delta recorded, fused connections on appropriate circuits, concealed and secured harnessing, verification that every device reports before the crew leaves, and sealed connectors on anything working near salt air. All reasonable, none exotic.
We're a Geotab Authorized Installer, $2M insured, with 35+ years and more than 11,000 installations behind us, and we document every vehicle we touch. We install across Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina at your yard. If you've had a rollout go badly and you're dealing with drain complaints or devices that drop out, call us — correcting previous work is a routine part of what we do.
Get a free quote from API Signal → or call/text 803-513-1009. We install across Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina, and we come to your yard.
We install GPS, cameras and telematics across GA, SC & NC — at your yard, on your schedule.