What is it with your profession!?!? Now I know that some systems are more difficult and some cars are harder than others to deal with, but d!$namit!!!

I have had so many bad experiences with different shops over the years that I am way more than reluctant to take my cars/trucks to a 'professional' installer, but I just had to break down and do it this time. MISTAKE!! I bought (installed myself) 4 new Polks in my '03 EB Expy. I also had a new Kicker 4 Ch. amp to power them. But after researching the install (mostly on this board), I decided that I could easily screw up my NAV or DVD system. So, I called the most reputable shop around, they quote $80 and scheduled a time. MISTAKE!!!

First they tell me to be there at 9:00 a.m. and I would be the first job of the day. No problem. I'm there at 9:00 a.m. and the sign on the door says Open M-F, 9-5, but no one is there and the other sign says CLOSED. OK, inconvenient, but I wait. 9:15, owner roles in. We discuss placement of the amp and he says, "We'll call when she's ready."

12:00, They call to tell me she's ready. "Did you set the gains and everything for me?" I ask. "Sure did. Tested everything and she's good to go." I get there, visually inpsect everything and OK it, then the bill is $157.00. "How did we get from $80-$157?" I inquire. "80 for labor, and the rest is parts." Knowing that I can buy a good Scosche install kit at WM for < $20 I'm skeptical, but in a hurry, so I pay up.

So, I'm driving down the road and behind the music I can hear a loud whistling sound that rises and falls in intensity as I accelerate or let off. This seems to be the very problem that many on this board experience when the power and head unit feed wires are run together on the same side of the vehicle. Well, as I'm listening to this trouble, my "Door Ajar" signals me. The left back door is open!!! I'm in traffic and can't stop, so I have to drive all the way to my meeting with the whistling and the sound of passing traffic. When I finally do stop, I open the back door (to close it fully) and there are the installer's tools!!!!!!!!!! The final straw to land on the camel's back was when I plugged in my cell charger into my dash outlet and the plug didn't have power!!!

So, listen up shop owners .. . . . TIGHTEN UP YOUR SHIZNIT!!! A faulty install has now been multiplied to pure a$$ laziness!!! I own a business where we ship product to every major retailer in the US and around the world. We deal with hundreds of thousands of SKUs, ASNs, EDIs, RFIPs, etc. etc. I can ship the perfect product, on time, in full and still owe a $50,000 charge back because of a typo in the computer or a trucker missing his dock window by 5 minutes, but my local stereo wire jockey gets to thrash an install, leave my back door open and his tools in my rig and keep my $157 ?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? I don't think so. TIGHTEN UP!!! There is NO excuse for this in business. Detail!! Detail!! Detail!! We'll be having a little pow-wow at that shop this afternoon.

I rant this as a plea to the good, honest, hard-working, knowledgeable installers out there. (I know there must be some somewhere) Train your team! Communicate with your customers! Attend to detail! I promise that your business would quadruple if the word got out about a shop like this, because I have not been able to find one to date.

Whew! I feel better. Thanks.

 

Sorry to hear about your faulty install experience. I try and install everything myself.

 

Precisely why I dont take my 05 mustang to the local ford dealership for service anymore....They broke stuff on my car, so now I dont trust them and do most of it myself....Jerks!

 

yea i agree prof. installers are just there to screw u over and take ur money. the quoted my bud a while back ago $30 to put in a CD player and all they had to do was get a wire harness, plug it in, test everything out, and that was it. i told him to just bring it to my house and we wired it up tooks us mabey 10 min

 

I do all my installs myself, I won't let other people even touch my stuff. I almost had the guys at Car Toys install my speakers because of the 3 year warranty vs the 1 year manufacturer's warranty but they wanted a whole bunch more money! I figured that if it dies after 1 year (which it shouldn't) then I'd just spring for a pair off eBay.

But I agree, you'll get ripped off on the installs and the quality is sub-standard. But how does the install look? Is it sloppy?

 

It's not that hard to do most of these installs yourself as long as you are careful and pay attention to what you're doing. I've done all my installs, and never run into a problem, except the one day i forgot to put the fuse in and racked my brain until i saw it sitting with the leftover wire:-[but thats another story, you do get ripped on these thing though, as said earlier, 30 for a stereo install, that takes all of 5 minutes to do? It's insane. Even a 3 year old could do it, if you can match colors, you can hook up a radio(in most cases).

 

Romer- The install 'looks' fine, but I've always been a form-follows-function kinda guy.

Thanks for all of the empathy from everyone. I knew I should've done it myself, but 2 kids, Momma in school, work etc. etc. I couldn't find time and got antsy with that new amp just sitting there in the garage. My bad. Lesson learned.

But, on the other hand, I'm not letting these fools off the hook. If you're going to open for business, and I mean any business, it is not unreasonable for your customers/clients to expect a certain level of competency. I mean, if we allow this type of business practice to continue, unchecked, we'll eventually get to a point (and we might be there already) that EVERYTHING will be DIY ! ! !

Ranting again, sorry. I'll shut up now.

 

it sounds like you had a bad installer. as a professional installer, everything that leaves my bay i make sure is returned in the same condition + stereo. next time, i'd find an installer that will show you vehicles that hes done and actually let you listen to them.

 

^ HARUMPH! That's what I'm talking about. Keep up the good work, Bill!!

 

I do install work for my friends, help them out they help me out, that kind of thing. I will give massive kudos to the nearby Fry's Electronics for installing my neighbor's radio. They truly did a great job on it, hooked everything up properly, made it look nice. Soldered, crimped, shrink wrapped, then wrapped in electrical tape all the connections to the HU. I was impressed.
Then again, they overcharge massively, so I guess we should expect it.
They do have a rather cool room though with like 40 10-15" subs and a plexiglass floor above amps that is AWESOME to stand in. They have it all wired into a 1800 HU. Quite cool to look at!

 

Hello
sorry to hear of your bad luck
Like many others have said
I am not surprised at all and and I have also heard every story in the book
to lighten your mood a little
Once had a guy come in with a shorted out radio-didnt know what happened
well apparently the shop ran out of electrical tape and used some type
of metallic duct tape on the wire harness-- yep shorted the speaker wires out--worth a good laugh

I have learned it is a very tough business to make money in
to do things properly is very time consuming
customers willing to spend the money neccesary to do it all right the 1st time
are few and far between-- nothing personal just a generalization
For these reasons a couple others I wont get into-- I limit my customers
to friends\family\aquaintences

You sound like you may have the ability to do this type of work yourself
And I would recommend doing so in the future

g/l
Josh
JB Customs

 

I completely agree with this statement, It seems that 9 out of 10 times I help someone out with their equipment the problems lie within cheap shotty wiring. I like doing the wiring on projects anyway, but when whom ever I am helping doesn't want to spend the money on doing it right, relentlessly I have to tell them they need someone else. Maybe it is because I have seen to many fires caused by electrical, I dunno.

Expydex, hope everything is straightened out by now and you are up and runnin'.

 

Thanks for the input everyone. Time/money were not an issue (well, except for MY time). I was willing to pay what they quoted and give them all of the time they needed. But, now, forget it.

I go down to express my concerns. I get all of the boys from the shop in the vehicle and let them hear what the problem is. "Yeah, I heard this when I put it in, but I didn't know what you wanted me to do." ???????????????? Are you kidding me? Here's an idea, INSTALL IT PROPERLY!! I also brought up the fact that my cig. lighter plug no longer had power. "Yeah, Jim-Bob unplugged that and there were matching green wires. I didn't know which one was ground and which one was hot, so I didn't hook it back up. It could have blown a fuse." ????????????????????????? Are you kidding me?

I returned their tools and drove off. They got me. However, I will make it VERY public around my little berg here that they are not to be trusted and their work is shoddy at best. Looks like I'm going to have to make some time to do it myself.

So, I have inspected the install and everything looks to be hooked up correctly. The power cord was routed around the driver side of the vehicle. The feed line from the HU was fed around the passenger side. The hack at the install shop kept saying "It's engine noise." What does this mean? Is the power line picking up some interference from the engine somehow? I added two RCA Line Conditioners which muted the problem, but it's still there at high rev or when I turn up the juice on the amp. Any thoughts on a fix?

There is also a very high "white noise" on radio frequencies with no station. For example, FM 88.1 that I use for my XM, has a very busy white noise sound before I power up my XM Delphi Roady. Then the sound kinda stays in the background. It's not really noticeable on music channels when music is playing, but it is unbearable when trying to get my Fox News updates. This was not there before the amp. I'm sure it has something to do with more power, but should it be that noticeable? I've never had this trouble before. HELP!!

 

Engine noise (is actually altenator whine) is generally caused by a bad ground. Another possiblility is that they ran the power wire right next to the RCA's. My guess is that it's a ground problem. The way it sounds the shop isn't worth a s**t. So they would not have taken the time to make a good ground. Sorry to hear your problems.

 

its easy to check your ground, just follow the wire to where it meets the chassis. make sure they sanded away the paint so that you have a good ground. if there is paint, just undo the ground and sand away the paint.