Who does a better install??
 

Me and a buddy were aguing about who does a better install, circuit city or best buy?? ive never had anything installed by best buy but i had a head unit and amp installed in a truck i used to have by circuit city and they f#$@ed it all up. he says circuit city is the best though.. for some reason,,, just wondering what you guys think

i work at best buy and they do a really good job, im not sayin that cuz i work there either, ive only worked there a couple of weeks and they use wire harnesses, they dont cut wires or anything of that sort...my 2 cents..

I do not want to get into this big argument yet again on another one of the many message boards i frequent. I work at Circuit City as an installer and myself and my fellow installers and sales counselers take alot of pride in our work and treat customers as our number 1 priority. Now I am not saying there are not some shady installers working for Circuit and I'm not saying there are not very skilled installers or very shady installers working for Best Buy as well. Same goes for alot of ma and pa stores to. I have seen some very spectacular installs out of them and have seen some very very sketchy installs as well. Here is my 2 cents. Yes Circuit does get commission. Is this a neg. or a pos.? I say pos. and this i why. If I am a sales uy working on commission I am going to sell you exactly what you need to make sure you get exactly what your are looking for because if you are not happy with it you will return it and it comes out of my check. Were if you are hourly you just ring up whatever the customer wants even if it is not exacty what may be the best for their application. I have seen some ma nad pas go through door jams with power wire, not solder or even make a solid crimp on alarms or remote starts. I have seen the good, the bad, and the ugly from Circuit, Best Buy, and all types of ma and pas. But do not judge everyone on the basis of one bad installer from a very reputible compay. I also want to say that BB and CC both do very extensive training and hiring procedures to make sure they get the best possible applicants where as I have seen some very unprofessional behavior from some ma and pa employees. Sorry for the long rant but I am a very proud Circuit City installer who does not appreciate being clumped together with every "DoocheBag" who tries to install duct tape and a butter knife.

Jason
"JellyBean"

By The Way blackp5sdp I like the Mallrats quote

hey, someone who knows a good movie....

Rather tape, solder or butt connectors its the installer that matters. I could do a remote starter with all soilder but it would be crap compared to my associate Fred's install using all twisting and tape. By the way a good twist with super 33 is a damn good connection and will last forever. BUtt connections are typical for speakers and headunits. As I have mentioned before butts are good with the right crimpers and a good installer. A good installer will tug test the crimps.

I have seen good and bad installs from each but I can usualy tell the installer that did it. Each installer developes a style of install. I like to use crimps for headunits then tape the harness in 3 places to releave all strain o the crimps and the harness attachments. Fred enjoys using 2 levels of tape one on each twist and then one around all tapred connections. Other tape the entire bundle after crimping, An installer over at BB likes that meathod.

bottom line, no if's, and's or but's....its not where you get it done....its WHO does the work.....

If you've done it yourself, it isn't as bad as a "pro" doing it, because obviously you know how to get to the wires, you can redo it pretty easily yourself.

But yeah, there's no real way to say which is better of those big chains, because it just depends on the people employed there...

If you want to learn how to do it yourself, you might want to order from Crutchfield (http://www.crutchfield.com). Once you've done one or two installations yourself you won't have a very hard time figuring out how to do them yourself. A lot of the time the trouble is figuring out how to take out the factory radio :)

i already got the stock HU out... i just dont know how to hook everything together.. you think i should get one of those instruction books that crutchfield sells, to help me for a first time install?? im pretty electrically and mechanically inclined i just have never done this stuff before so in the stereo/amp department im pretty stupid...:dunce: :dunno:

Well, you probably don't really need the crutchfield instruction then. What they do provide you with is some other useful stuff:

Mounting kit -- make sure the new stereo fits in the dash properly, not totally sure if this is necessary for 3rd gen pros, they are already the "standard" DIN size, I think.

Wiring harness -- this will plug into the plugs that came out of the back of the stock radio (big white plugs usually). You then wire this harness with the one that comes with the new radio. That way, the radio wiring will snap right into the car's wiring. Of course, the other option would be to cut the factory plugs and wire that right into the new radio's plugs, but just don't do that. ;)

The other wires that you'll see are the antenna wire (more or less universal plug, looks kind of like a headphone plug wire actually), and the ground wire, which you usually put into a screw on the back of the new radio. (Actually not all cars have this ground wire (???) My first gen does though.)

The mounting kit (if you need it -- search the forum) and wiring harness you can usually get from circuit city.

So yeah... that's my mini-tutorial... hope it's not too confusing :)

ok maybe im retarded but bear with me..... im guessing i get the harness that says "metra mazda 1990 and up-into car"?? the other ones say "mazda 1998-into car" am i just dumb or what?

Go to the following link below and order you a kit and harness. It is what I did and it all worked great.

AUTO SOUND GEAR

Changed the links, should work now.

Best Buy are pretty good as I have had many things installed there, but then again one of my friends had problems with them.................depends on who the guy working on the car is, I guess.........

Defiently depends on the installer and not the place.

I've been to both BestBuys and Circuit Citys and talked to the installers to see if they knew what they were talking about. There was only 1 guy at BestBuy I would let touch my car as he did know what he was talking about and doing. Did a really nice job on my older car.

The Circuit City here, well.. 1 word.. WOW. Very impressed with the new Manager/Installer they have here. they have all good installers but the Manager that started a couple months ago, impressed. Does some VERY nice work. Did my Father in-laws car the other day and went above and beyond the call of normal installs. Basically he had time to kill and did some neat shit. Have yet to see the whole install yet but the New radio, aux ports, wiring, atenta for XM that I did see where nicely done. Will be going over there sometime to take the truck apart and see the rest of the job.

Get this the installer at Circuit City does fiberglass work as well. This is the only Circuit City that I've seen that will do fiberglass work for audio. He's going to bring in a portfolio for me to look over but looks like I found my place for my custom fiberglass work ;)

hey , what circuit city do you go to???? where you at in virginia?close to alexandria??