WORST Installs yall have had to fix???(installers)

[Ruststang]

ive had to clean up way too many messes to count...i need to start bringin a camera to work!

Actually had to clean up an amp bypass and radio install in a Lexus GS300 the other day. Guy picked it up wholesale from Carmax and I was installing a JLw7 and 1000/1. Everything was great until I took the radio out and saw that the entire radio harness and eventually the amp bypass had been poorly stripped and twisted together. Most of the connections were bare and a few of them had duct tape on them. Needless to say I had an explanation for the customer as to why he kept blowing fuses and his a/c, radio, dash lights, etc...hadn't been working

Correction its a jlaudio w6 and a 500/1 amp and its also my lexus but thanks for not bad mouthing me... Small world huh?

[patrick4588]

lol.

[Ruststang]

bump waiting for response lol

[drpepper14]

lol yeah that was a fun radio to deal with. No bad mouthing here! Didn't quite remember what JL products they were, just remember it sounded great...and that the other installer who grounded your amp was a jackass because I think we had to move that later on too because it kept coming undone.

Hope it's still working out for you man

[Ruststang]

everything is working out well and for the nay sayers you guys have installed two amp/sub setups for me now one in my black 01 tahoe and now the lexus. Both have worked perfectly with no problems due to installer error just idiot previous owners lol.

[drpepper14]

thanks bud, we know how to install but our reps are tarnished because we work for circuit sh.itty

[myyellowspec]

This isn't really a fix but it's pretty messed up. One of the installers at my shop (best buy of undisclosed location lolol) was puting a radio and XM in an FD RX-7. He worked on it for like an hour then pulled it out and went to lunch. The customer went out to his car and I heard him yelling. He comes back in red faced screaming at me about how "that ni@@er" totaled his car. I go out and look at the car and just about every interior panel was broken and his windshield had a nice crack down it. The claim was 7500 (He grounded out the dash harness and burned it up too). Then the dude never came back to work, his box is still there and everything.

[hybrid90accord]

This isn't really a fix but it's pretty messed up. One of the installers at my shop (best buy of undisclosed location lolol) was puting a radio and XM in an FD RX-7. He worked on it for like an hour then pulled it out and went to lunch. The customer went out to his car and I heard him yelling. He comes back in red faced screaming at me about how "that ni@@er" totaled his car. I go out and look at the car and just about every interior panel was broken and his windshield had a nice crack down it. The claim was 7500 (He grounded out the dash harness and burned it up too). Then the dude never came back to work, his box is still there and everything.

How did a sat.radio install do all that damage??? sounds like he must have been a real ****ty installer to break door panels on a sat radio install

[drpepper14]

This isn't really a fix but it's pretty messed up. One of the installers at my shop (best buy of undisclosed location lolol) was puting a radio and XM in an FD RX-7. He worked on it for like an hour then pulled it out and went to lunch. The customer went out to his car and I heard him yelling. He comes back in red faced screaming at me about how "that ni@@er" totaled his car. I go out and look at the car and just about every interior panel was broken and his windshield had a nice crack down it. The claim was 7500 (He grounded out the dash harness and burned it up too). Then the dude never came back to work, his box is still there and everything.

haha I guess i'll never go to the CC or BB in Hiram lol oops you kept that a secret

Don't go to best buy in hiram unless you get some douche that goes by the names of chris, tom, or chris-tom to do your install haha

[LSTurboHatch]

i work at the new CC in cleveland tn. we've only been open for a about a month now, but i've already had to fix about 12 wiring problems. luckily nothing as bad as the OP

[myyellowspec]

haha I guess i'll never go to the CC or BB in Hiram lol oops you kept that a secret

Don't go to best buy in hiram unless you get some douche that goes by the names of chris, tom, or chris-tom to do your install haha

Aww thats dirty slackleford. You know I am a way better installer + just got my MECP Basic lolol.

[drpepper14]

lol i'll give it to ya man ur a little badass

you should ask dan for ur job back haha then you could join the even more badass crew @ circuit chitty

[myyellowspec]

I did, but he is a small di*ked retard. B money is trying to recruit me to the hiram cc lol.

[sikfricks]

cc of rome is aight if kellet is there but while i worked there it was a lot of fixing and what sucked is fixing what other people that you worked with did

[Ol' Gregg]

kinda different but the same. did a xm install on a old jetta. pulled the radio to install wired fm mod. tapped power and ing under dash by started. plugged radio back in (keep in mind radio worked before didnt blow any fuses!!) and radio didnt turn back on. hummmmmmm never did find the prob lol. at the time my the other installer i worked with was billy brown and he couldnt figure it out either. for people who dont know who he is.... hes the main man for TWEETER

[mouzzer]

workin down in Henry county, we get lots of crazy kids comin into the shop asking us to fix there wiring jobs. I feel your pain. I'll try to get some pics up

[patrick4588]

not to be racist, but i get a ton of mexicans in vans that have rigged up factory radios from other cars and trucks into them multiple times. i hate messing with wiring that has been cut and spliced like 5 times. ftl

[okra1981]

In my hometown, a shop used to pop a hole in the floor board under the dash and run all of the wires under the car and pop another hole in the trunk to get them back in. They usually didn't use zip ties or anything, I figured this out after seeing a customers pickup with wires hanging down, he was wondering why his cd changer didn't work after four wheeling all weekend in the woods.

The worst I've worked on was when I fought with a driver's door speaker that wouldn't work, then I noticed welding on the hinge, yeah, the door had fallen off before. Of course this trucks radio had a rat's nest because they had cut every wire imaginable.

[CousticKingz]

i had a 1995 Toyta Avalon, when i opened the dash
the radio was being held by wire!
the wires were stripped and were shorting out
the alarm was wired up to on the radio,
all speakers were different and were blown
and on top of that the owner said that he got the "professional equipment"
at a garage sale
had to redo everything! but got paid good money though!=)

[sonic30101]

i had a lady that just bought a 1997 crv and wanted to install a radio because the previous owner told her the factory radio was broken and it didnt turn on. so i take the radio out and she is talking on the phone in the shop so she sees my pull the radio out of the dash along with a towel and a 2X4 wrapped in duct tape that were shoved into the dash to keep the radio from falling into the dash. no factory brackets and the harness looked like a 5 year old slashed it up and no plug on the harness (i guess that is what the previous owner was talking about that the radio wouldnt turn on) her rwaction was worth the pain in the @$$ that the car became though

[okra1981]

Found this on ephatch forum, the guy was somewhat proud of it because it was a cheap ported box, it's cheap alright.

[JTImport]

I hate to say it but just about ALL the motor swaps that have came into my shop that I didn't do! I've had to rewire the entire harnesses on almost all of them! It seems there are allot of shops around that either don't know how to use a soldering gun or are just too lazy too!

This has got to be one of the biggest pet peeves of mine.


The reason you should solder? Let’s say you have a 4 cylinder engine. It’s running at say, 6000rmps. At that speed the injectors have 20 milliseconds to fire. Now this is at 100% duty cycle. (Most anyone who knows will tell you not to run 100%.) So your ecu has a very small amount of time to figure out where the crankshaft and camshafts are and to send a signal back out the injectors. If you put a crimp in the wires coming from the crank/cam angle sensors or going back out to the injectors you are essentially putting resistance in the wire which will slow the signal from the ecu down. I know it might not be much but any latency at this small amount of times will cause problems especially when you are running a forced induction car! This is just a quick overview of the operation of one aspect of how wiring can affect your cars performance. It gets FAR deeper then this! This is not even mentioning the fact that most crimped wires will work their way loose especially in a car that is tracked!

I can't tell you how many problems I've had with swaps that have been done by so called "experts" that have had problems that have led back to the wiring!



Incase anyone here is about to do a swap themselves, SOLDER, SOLDER, SOLDER, SOLDER! DO NOT CRIMP!



I’m off my soap box now! LOL!!!

[hybrid90accord]

well i got a sc400 intoday. the guy tried to install a double din screen in himself and well it was a total mess of wires. to top it off he has a prefab 2 15' box that somehow got into teh trunk and he wanted to change the amp out but i couldnt even get the sub box out here r a few pics

[hybrid90accord]

another guy complained that when he faded to the front the front speakers would cut off. he tried installing the radio himself first, i guess matching colors is harder then i though, he had white going to purples and grays to green lol

[Ruststang]

Is there any issue with crimping radio wires like shown above^^^. Thats how i have installed just cd players in previous cars and ive never had any trouble. However as stated on page 1 my radio is jacked up in the lexus and ive since had to remove it completely and clip some wires to fix the short so my car would go into park lol.

[alpine_aw11]

Is there any issue with crimping radio wires like shown above^^^. Thats how i have installed just cd players in previous cars and ive never had any trouble. However as stated on page 1 my radio is jacked up in the lexus and ive since had to remove it completely and clip some wires to fix the short so my car would go into park lol.

I'm going to say no, hell I've taped wires up temporarily for a week or so and it worked fine. Of course taping is a no for permanent solutions, but using connectors on a head unit install shouldn't give you any problems whatsoever unless you **** it up yourself.

[patrick4588]

i prefer to solder and heat shrink anything i can, but crimping isnt necessarily bad if done properly. i wouldnt suggest it if you have access to a soldering gun; but as an only resort it will work

[T.C.]

I was working at BB and the new guy said that he checked the 89 civic in and he lied. When I pulled the civic in and got out the step panel caught on my foot and ripped off to reveal the top of an ant bed, eggs and all. So before I called the guy to tell him I wasnt working on it I decided to take a peak at the "equipment" in the trunk. His "equipment" was a ford cd player, a realistic house speaker box that had a 12" in it with a boss amp attached to the back of it and all this stuff was sitting in an inch of water. I wished I had a camera that day so bad.

BTW the story about the block of wood and the rag is some funny sh!t.

[Ruststang]

I just tried to fix mine and i can't figure out what is going on for the life of me. With my multi meter i have Constant 12v i have switched 12v and using the resistance alarm and touching a door bolt i have a good ground... So in theory shouldn't the radio at least power on?

[b@d @pple]

if the radio isnt bad then yes it should turn on

[patrick4588]

so um mazda millenia's suck. i had to do one today with a bose system in it. there is no amp bypass or integration harness for it. you have to use part of the mazda 70-7901 harness and part of a hyundai harness (cant remember pn) and then test the wires to match the speakers. the one i did today ended up having red to white and yellow to green and stuff. it was hella gay; and the car was completely stock. millenia's = supreme fail

[drpepper14]

welcome to the step-child bastard otherwise known as the mazda millenia....

[flak_monkey]

I thought my install was "bad" until I looked at this. Oh well. At least I know how to solder, and know better than to purchase cheap ****.

[hybrid90accord]

so um mazda millenia's suck. i had to do one today with a bose system in it. there is no amp bypass or integration harness for it. you have to use part of the mazda 70-7901 harness and part of a hyundai harness (cant remember pn) and then test the wires to match the speakers. the one i did today ended up having red to white and yellow to green and stuff. it was hella gay; and the car was completely stock. millenia's = supreme fail

i did one that had 12+, switch, ground, remote turn on and illumination in the harness and a data wire going to the bose amp and thats it. I just opened up that data wire that comes out of the factory radio which looks like a cd changer plug that goes to the factory bose amp their 4 sets of wires inside of that wire. i just hooked up fl, fr, rr, rl and then at the bose amp did the bypass and connected all the wires to the data wire, saves time and required no extra wires to the amp and looks alot cleaner.

[hybrid90accord]

Well i had another one come threw 2000 chevy impala. complained of engine noise and wanted bore bass and a better box, the previous was a pre-fab(i think). So i fold down the seats and to my un-suprises this is what i found. So i took everything out and built him a single port dual 12' sub box.

the previous installers install(i dont see how any installer could let a customer leave with it looking lik ethis)


pre-fab box( i think)


all finished

[K24cb7coupe]

wow, you love for installing stereo has taken the fire to finish your car? hasnt it? lowers head and slowly walks away....

[hybrid90accord]

wow, you love for installing stereo has taken the fire to finish your car? hasnt it? lowers head and slowly walks away....

ive made alot of process but you have been ghost and wouldnt know, lol

[patrick4588]

Well i had another one come threw 2000 chevy impala. complained of engine noise and wanted bore bass and a better box, the previous was a pre-fab(i think). So i fold down the seats and to my un-suprises this is what i found. So i took everything out and built him a single port dual 12' sub box.

the previous installers install(i dont see how any installer could let a customer leave with it looking lik ethis)


pre-fab box( i think)


all finished

if a circuit city or best buy did that job, i wouldnt be surprised at all. the installers get paid less than like 10-11 dollars an hour and a basic install is all customers will pay for. therefore they dont care about the job and do stuff like that. it looks like the power wires, rca's, and everything are all just bundled there together. good job redoing it properly; the new box looks great

[hybrid90accord]

All i will say is that the customer said he took it to a car audio shop in conyers GA. I was suprised when he told me the shop that he took it too, cause they have a great reputation but i guess you cant judge a shop by one bad installer but......well i guess you can

[twincannon26]

i installed for best buy several years ago and saw some pretty crazy stuff, but the best has to be an "install" done by my best friend years before. he had a profile amp powering a boston sub and the power wire, remote wire, and rca's were all run nicely under the carpet and the amp was secured to the back of the seat. however, when he needed to find a good ground, instead of using a terminal connector, he used metal flasking tape and taped the ground wire to an exposed bolt.

i do his installs now.