Drive Door [Closed]


Driver Door [Opened]


Passenger Door


I swore there was a cap cover for this keyhole and even the instruction manual shows one.

The other day I took my 2007 Civic Coupe to Fry's Electronics to have them install an amp and two speakers to my factory deck. The pictures are the outcome and on top of that the amp and speakers were not wired/grounded properly. While the engine was running you could hear a hiss and whine in the background and it got even louder when I accelerated. It took them two days to fix the issue however now my car shocks me whenever I touch the doors.

 

I went to frys to have them install a whole system. HU, four speakers and an amp. That was more than 10 years ago. Thats when I had less knowledge on stuff like this. Just about a year ago I was curious on what was behind the scene of my system. I opened up the carpet to look at the wiring and went behing the HU.

My 12 gauge amp power cable had exposed copper touching the metal frame in three different places. They pinched it at tight places in the car. That explained my intermittened bass loss. The amp ground went from a 12 gauge wire to a hidden 24 gauge wire connected with butt connectors. And were super long all coiled up hidden. ohh and the power amp cable had several butt connectors from the battery to the amp. About 4 to 5 of them. So it wasn't a solid long cable. Also they the cut out the factory harness and it looked like a spagiti factory in there.

Its best to learn and do things yourself. Don't get me started with auto mechanics. But yeah. Some people just don't give a **** about your stuff.

 

I'm sorry you had a bad experience with that shop,but you can't just lump us all
together. There are just as many GREAT retail chains as there are bad ones.
You just have to shop around and ask logical questions -the answers may surprise you:

"we'll beat their price...." - Now everyone wants to save a few $$ in this economy,
but use your head. If the price is not even competitive...run (don't walk) in the other direction. Shortcuts will be made to keep "profitability" up.

"free installs" - yeah finally this has gone away in most cases. Why you ask- there is no profitability in the gear anymore. The brand name product markup is roughly 22%- even lower on the $100 retail and less product. If they offer free install and no other competitor is on the similar gear....remember shortcuts may be taken.

- Talk to the tech. Get a feel of the person who may work on your car. If you have a better vibe from one request that tech to work on your car. You'll find out who is up to the task.

These are just a few questions. I hope that the shop will make your car right. Most good shops will (and yes accidents so happen-scratches on door probably came from the clips on the bottom of the panel while removing it- that cover may be under your seat)

And for those who think that "I'll" just do it myself...." A few words of advice:

If you have the time,tools,talent and technical knowledge....go for it.
If any of those are missing...its best that you leave it to a pro.

I have been at this hobby for well over 20 years and have forgotten more than some of you will learn about car audio (experience owns youthful exuberance). With that know your limits. I cannot tell you how many DIYers have done more damage and destruction to their cars than hack installers in the quest to save a few dollars.

 

Whenever you get work done on your car, remember one thing: you are getting work done by a business, not Unicef. Do some price research beforehand and know what materials should cost and find out the shops hourly labor rate. If the numbers dont add up, chances are they are cutting corners to make profit.

Also, cheap is good (hey we all like saving money) but theres certain places where you cant cut corners. As far as having copper exposed, thats not just lazy, thats a fire hazard. Bring your car back and talk to the manager, and keep going above his head to the next step until you get someone willing to make it right. those scratches on the car and the 24g ground (lol) are unacceptable and need to be fixed immediately

 

Years ago, my buddy had his 99 hatchback installed at bestbuy and they chipped his carbon fiber hood by the windshield. He was pissed!

 

Thanks bro but that were more than 10 years ago. I just found this problem out last year when I gutted the interior out. For sure I was pissed. I rewired it myself.

 

I cant find the link anywhere, but I think it was Circuit City that was in the topic of a install gone wrong. IIRC, the car was deemed totalled by the insurance company, after an installer somehow destroyed the entire electrical system on a new car

 

that sucks^
is there anything you can really do anything like this?

 

Lets not generalize now, i was an installer for many years at circuit city and i actually cared about my work quality and what not. I think the biggest problem is the pay for installers, only a tiny bit more then sales people...granted i made good money because of being there for awhile, but new installers didn't make anywhere near what they should of.

 

There are some things u do by yourself, noone will care for your car like u can

 

If they don't make much why even work there and hack up other peoples cars? That's not a good reason to mess up peoples cars

 

There is the wage people would like to get and then the wage that puts food in your mouth. If there isn't a lot of job opportunities people take what they can get. It's the stores responsibility to know that if your seriously under paying someone then the quality of work is gonna suffer no matter how qualified the individual.

I think installers is a dieing career path. OEM's will always canabalize your growth opportunities. Cars now come with alarms,subwoofers, 10 speaker audio, CD players, MP3 players, HDD player, navigation....,ect. They may not be the top of the line but probably good enough for 90% of the buyers. If your young and looking for a career path you might want to look somewhere else JMO.

Eveen car stereo stores are a dieing bread. I have watched a bunch go out of buisness in my area. If I was a car stereo buisness owner I would be looking to diversify as much as possible. Trying going into other things while you still can, rims, tires, go fast parts ect.

 

OP- Lets not forget there are some installers in this forum that might get offended. Yes its true we shouldn't generalize. The OP and I were just unlucky that we landed on an incompetent installer back in frys. And there are quite a hand full out there. And of course there are some installers that will do a surperb job and care about their work.

For the guy I'm quoting, Keep up the good work. Good and honest installers are hard to find in SD.

 

I understand that but yeah installer jobs have been dieing for a while and the internet killed most stereo shops with the prices. And on top of that more people are going to try to do it on their own anyway. Almost every car stereo shop in my area went out of buisiness including my friends. Unless someone is looking for a complete custom setup there really isn't that much money to make anymore with stereos

 

It's been two and a half weeks now and there's been no update on the situation. I've been calling non stop but I keep getting the run around. I'll give it until Monday but if I don't hear anything I'm going to be filing a small claims suit against them to get my car repaired and to cover the cost fixing their shoddy installation work.

 

Report to BBB as well. It will let others know on record of their shaddy work.

BBB will instruct you to email or write a letter first stating that if your demands are not met, then you will take them to small claims. If they don't respond in a week, then you take action.

 

I think they didn't help things much but I don't think the internet is the cause of the buisness change if anything the internet I believe is what is keeping that buisness alive. The OEM's, Honda, Ford, Toyota are the real cause to the decline IMO. You used to buy a car and it would come with a crummy tape deck and crappy speakers. This caused the person to go out to their local retailer and swap all that garbage out. In the 90's car stereo's were huge. Anytime their is a large up tick in a particular area OEM's will take notice and figure out how to take that market segment back. They did so by negotiating contracts with apline,bose,harmin Kardin...ect to install those items in their cars.

Now cars come with decent speakers, MP3, HDD, navigation...ect. It's good enough for 95% of the people out there. The side affect is that previously people bought cheap gear and then later moved up. That was the natural progression of things. That path no loger exists because they no longer have an initial investment in gear.

My Range Rover has Navigation, MP3 player, 10 subwoofer, 10 speakers, amplifiers and it integrated with my cars computer. Whatincentive would I have to swap out gear? A lot of cars are comming this way now.

 

 

That's a shame that they beat the crap out of your car and did a crappy install. I took my 03 accord to Sound Advice.

I had them Install:

JL Audio 10" W7
JL Audio 500/1 AMP
JL Audio Clean Sweep

This was 5 years ago and I've never had a problem. I know you didn't go to Sound Advice but I'm just saying you can get quality work done at a retail chain.