anyone know cheap place to get audio system installed..
02-13-2004, 10:04 AM
#17
Great points. But on the flip side of that there are plenty of shops out there that will cut corners and will do shabby work and will intentionally rip you off. Unfortunately I know of two of them in the bay area that I have had that happen.
Bad shop experience one: Got an alpine indash 3 disc cartridge changer put it...was the big thing back then. Got an alarm put in. Got some speakers put in. While later I caught someone trying to brake into my car. Within a couple weeks of that I came home from work to find everything gone along with my $450 custom pool stick and about 100 cd's. Cops couldn't do jack but get finger print dust all over my damn car.....BART parking lot. That weekend I go down to the same shop to tell them what happened and keep an eye out cause they treeted me well....guess what's in the display wall. My damn cd player. How do I know. Because I had just been in there talking to them about it and they had know plans of ordering any more and had not ordered any within the few days preceeding. Another reason...I special ordered colored cartridges so I could just grab one and know what type of music was in it. It had a red one sitting in it....The red one was the one in it when it got stolen. On top of that when I had the alarm pulled out of my truck and put in my civic the guy asked me why non of the door sensors were plugged in. They had been run and then tied off.
Bad shop experience number 2: Got my stereo put in my civic. Deck. Custom door Led's for the alarm. speakers. etc. Then I got it all upgraded and replaced and a different shop. They hooked it up and didn't tune it at all so I had to adjust the amp to no end and switch some of the wires around. Then I go up to the snow. park in the garage...as I'm leaving...roll my window down to say buy to my folks....doesn't roll back up...beauty eh. Snowing...window down. Yeah. So I take it back in. say man I came in here last week. Gave you guys my car for a day to put my stereo in which turned out to be 4 days. Now my windows broke. No dice...they say they didn't do it and won't pay to fix it. My friend was an installer there so he helped me pull the window shut so I could drive it for a while....man I was driving through drive thru windows in reverse for a month...no joke. Then guess what....a channel in my amp goes. So I go in. They say oh your amp is toast it's under warranty we'll take care of it. oh and your front speaker is blown...then they refuse to let me see the speaker...I know a blown speaker by site and smell. one of the guys finally lets me see it...not blown but I did realize they freakin screwed me.....it was a lower model and it was a 5.25 and not a 6.5. Then they charge me $86 for shipping to send the amp back in for repairs or replacement......takes a damn month.... so I yell at them. They say they'll put the right speakers in this time and check all the wires. So....I get my car back another 3 days later...why does it take 3 days to install speakers and an amp? So I pissed and I open the door up.....same damn speakers..tried to rip me off again so I go in to talk to the owner....he says those speakers don't fit. I said well you shouldn't have sold them to me in the first place then and you should have called to inform me...not just put $150 cheaper speakers in. He says sorry. Puts in 6 inch lower line speakers...still getting about $75 for free out of the deal but I chill out some......then I say no **** this cause it took them another whole day to do that and they left the same smaller crappier tweeters in. So my buddy comes down. we jump on the guy and I walk out a bit happier with a free digital cap and costing him two jobs totalling well over $5k. Then he got all...why you do this to me...you just costed me a lot of money talking to those people. I said well man..You just cost me a lot of money and a lot of trouble. I've without my damn car for a total of a week and a half. And you tried to rip me off 3 times.
Then on top of that when I just went and pulled all the wires out of the civic so I can install the amp in my wrx.....my $150 pheonix gold 2 guage wiring kit.....It was cut like half way through and patched with some cheap off the spool wire. Probably why my damn amp blew the first time.
all and all I am very very sketchy with installers. I have a ton of work that needs to be done with my wrx and I'm freaked out about letting another shop touch my car.
These two experiences alone coast my a couple thousand dollars. And they are not the only 2 I'v had.
So yeah...be very careful with whom you choose...check the BB site and see if they have outstanding complaints.....the second of those two listed above had 14. That's 12 more than the BB allows and still supports you.
So yeah...be careful....you're asking the right people....use people that people you trust have used before and places with a long good service record.
Bad shop experience one: Got an alpine indash 3 disc cartridge changer put it...was the big thing back then. Got an alarm put in. Got some speakers put in. While later I caught someone trying to brake into my car. Within a couple weeks of that I came home from work to find everything gone along with my $450 custom pool stick and about 100 cd's. Cops couldn't do jack but get finger print dust all over my damn car.....BART parking lot. That weekend I go down to the same shop to tell them what happened and keep an eye out cause they treeted me well....guess what's in the display wall. My damn cd player. How do I know. Because I had just been in there talking to them about it and they had know plans of ordering any more and had not ordered any within the few days preceeding. Another reason...I special ordered colored cartridges so I could just grab one and know what type of music was in it. It had a red one sitting in it....The red one was the one in it when it got stolen. On top of that when I had the alarm pulled out of my truck and put in my civic the guy asked me why non of the door sensors were plugged in. They had been run and then tied off.
Bad shop experience number 2: Got my stereo put in my civic. Deck. Custom door Led's for the alarm. speakers. etc. Then I got it all upgraded and replaced and a different shop. They hooked it up and didn't tune it at all so I had to adjust the amp to no end and switch some of the wires around. Then I go up to the snow. park in the garage...as I'm leaving...roll my window down to say buy to my folks....doesn't roll back up...beauty eh. Snowing...window down. Yeah. So I take it back in. say man I came in here last week. Gave you guys my car for a day to put my stereo in which turned out to be 4 days. Now my windows broke. No dice...they say they didn't do it and won't pay to fix it. My friend was an installer there so he helped me pull the window shut so I could drive it for a while....man I was driving through drive thru windows in reverse for a month...no joke. Then guess what....a channel in my amp goes. So I go in. They say oh your amp is toast it's under warranty we'll take care of it. oh and your front speaker is blown...then they refuse to let me see the speaker...I know a blown speaker by site and smell. one of the guys finally lets me see it...not blown but I did realize they freakin screwed me.....it was a lower model and it was a 5.25 and not a 6.5. Then they charge me $86 for shipping to send the amp back in for repairs or replacement......takes a damn month.... so I yell at them. They say they'll put the right speakers in this time and check all the wires. So....I get my car back another 3 days later...why does it take 3 days to install speakers and an amp? So I pissed and I open the door up.....same damn speakers..tried to rip me off again so I go in to talk to the owner....he says those speakers don't fit. I said well you shouldn't have sold them to me in the first place then and you should have called to inform me...not just put $150 cheaper speakers in. He says sorry. Puts in 6 inch lower line speakers...still getting about $75 for free out of the deal but I chill out some......then I say no **** this cause it took them another whole day to do that and they left the same smaller crappier tweeters in. So my buddy comes down. we jump on the guy and I walk out a bit happier with a free digital cap and costing him two jobs totalling well over $5k. Then he got all...why you do this to me...you just costed me a lot of money talking to those people. I said well man..You just cost me a lot of money and a lot of trouble. I've without my damn car for a total of a week and a half. And you tried to rip me off 3 times.
Then on top of that when I just went and pulled all the wires out of the civic so I can install the amp in my wrx.....my $150 pheonix gold 2 guage wiring kit.....It was cut like half way through and patched with some cheap off the spool wire. Probably why my damn amp blew the first time.
all and all I am very very sketchy with installers. I have a ton of work that needs to be done with my wrx and I'm freaked out about letting another shop touch my car.
These two experiences alone coast my a couple thousand dollars. And they are not the only 2 I'v had.
So yeah...be very careful with whom you choose...check the BB site and see if they have outstanding complaints.....the second of those two listed above had 14. That's 12 more than the BB allows and still supports you.
So yeah...be careful....you're asking the right people....use people that people you trust have used before and places with a long good service record.
02-13-2004, 12:40 PM
#18
Originally posted by 02scubyroo
but shops like that Circuit City Best buy etc are not professionals, or rather they dont specialize. its safer to go to a Car Audio store. my friends have all had problems with their instals from places like that.
but shops like that Circuit City Best buy etc are not professionals, or rather they dont specialize. its safer to go to a Car Audio store. my friends have all had problems with their instals from places like that.
true, but like somebody said above, time is money. Most will just do it as quickly as possible. I had installed a deck in my old car once at good guys down at stonestown. It took them the whole day (past shop time hours) to finish it when I brought it in around 10:30 am. I found out they hadn't even started until half an hour before closing.
Next I installed an amp and sub at circuit city with the same car. Their price was the cheapest by far and they also took the whole day to finish installing the stuff (they also didn't begin working on it till late late afternoon).
I remember I had some sort of problem with both installs from good guys and circuit city but I don't remember.
Now I got a wrx. I buy the deck from crutchfield and install it myself. It didn't work. Call them up and after an hour or so, we figured out that they messed up when making the custom harness (the black and red wires were crossed). So they sent me another one, this time the tech guy made it himself.
It works and several weeks later I install an amp and sub from the same circuit city with the same guy that installed my stuff with my previous car. This time I get there when the shop opens, hoping that they can finish it quicker (there were 3 cars in front of me and they only have 2 spaces to work inside the garage). About an hour later after shopping, I get a call saying the car is done. I drive it off the lot and notice that my window started screeching (not sure if that was caused by them though). That was about it as far as problems go.
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