Yep,

Well, it happened to me..Yesterday afternoon i roll up to my buddies house where him, his friend, and I will be doing an install of my system (at the moment 2 amps and a sub)...we get rollingby wiring everything up fine, all done within a half hour. Then the madness sets in..we turn on the HU, and turn up the music...my one buddy is up front with the HU, while i'm in back testing to see if my Crunch sub is kicking at all...after not even 5 seconds of the CD player being on, i smell something burning...oh no...theres smoke coming out of the sub....i unplug that crap, throw it on the garage floor, and start unscrweing the sub from the enclosure as fast as possible...too late, as soon as i unscrew the top screws smoke comes BILLOWING out..ugh...so after about 6 hours of trouble-shooting and no sound whatsoever out of any of the gear, we call it a day..luckily my friend felt bad for me and sold me his brand new Alpine Type R for 120 bucks (woo!)...they told me to take it into Circuity City as soon as possible...I take it in this morning to my buddy who works there, and he tells me that mad crazy stuff was wrong...turns out that i blew some fuses , wired a few things wrong, and well...i dont know...i guess you learn from experience, and this experience i'd have to learn, cos im being charged up the arse from these mistakes..

Ever happen to anyone else? any other horror stories?

Jim

Here' kind of a dumbass story ....

I bought a brand new 94 Z24. It was my first new car. I pulled all my stereo stuff out of my S-10 Blazer that I traded in. A week after I had it I decided to install all of my aftermarket stuff. I got it all wired including a 4 guage power wire to the trunk. I go to put in the fuse and noticed it was busted... Well (here is the stupid part) I just hooked it up without a fuse so I could listen to it. The next day on my way to get a fuse I pull into the parking lot and my car starts to die and act all f'ed up. I stop and notice smoke pouring out of my hood. I jump out and back away from my car trying to figure out what was going on. Keys in hand my car starts cranking the starter all by itself....I finally realize what had happened and pop the hood to cut the glowing red wire.

Well the power wire obviously came loose and grounded itself. The car still ran fine after that but the burned stripe in the carpet, fried trunk matting, and burned up amp/sub really made me upset especially since the car was a week old.

Oh well...shit happens...

Chad

MODS:
3" PVC CAI, GST Muffler, Greddy 4-1 Header, AFX UDP, 55 mm bored TB, P&P Intake Manifold, Corbin intake spacer, gutted cat, Apexi S-AFC, KYB AGX Struts, Eibach Prokits, Excel TZ-10 Rims

wow...you got really lucky. ive seen waaaaaaay too many cars engulfed in flames because of a short and no fuse.

and ive had plently of hard installs! the worst was in my friends 2000 acura TL, i was trying to find a place to drill in the firewall to run power wire...it took me 4 hours to find one. theres a ton of crap all over the place in that engine bay! i had a nissan that i couldnt get the factory radio mounting bracket off of, so i had to use a dremel to cut it out.

so far in my car, ive gone through many batteries, a transmission (destroyed the trans. computer), a close to new MTX 2300 amp (was about 600 bucks at the time), and now i need to replace the alternator...all related to my stereo install. the funny thing is this: all the componants in the system only cost about 1200 bucks, the install materials cost around 300, and the cost of reparing my mistakes is about 2000

im not a bad installer...i promise!!

:shhh: i do cocaine :/shhh:

Whoa!

I've never seen my car smoking or engulfed in flames besides the time my last car got totalled....wow....i guess we all have to learn from mistakes n' all...


dude ^^^ me....how do all these problems happen to your car cos of your stereo install? i'd go back to 8 track i'd be so frustrated man!

Anyways, I got my car back from Circuit City Today..They corrected my mishaps which were , 1) Used the wrong fuse (amp needed a 60, i had an 80 in there....mmm whoops..).. 2) Ground was OK, (i grounded to one of the nuts/bolts down under by the spare wheel well) but he moved it to a better spot...and he kinda moved a few things about that i had haphazardly misdone...After firing up the system, All the crazy stuff that i'd gone through didnt matter any more, as my 12''Alpine Type R Sub pounded amazingly. I've been all smiles n' giggles ever since..woo! bass rocks! next up i'm aiming for some Alpine type R 6x9's and coaxials, and my setup would be complete..

Another note...im not sure about you guys, but the circuit City by me is way cool about Car audio..the guys who install at this CC actually take the time to install things carefully and with quality...it's also re-assuring to see that the manager drives around a 98 Eagle Talon too, as his sound competion car as well. 2gnt! woo!

well, none of the stuff that happened was really my fault (kinda;)).

all the batteries went bad from me playing the stereo too loud for too long with the car off. none of them were deep-cycle. the MTX 2300 smoked for some unknown reason, even the MTX techs couldnt figure it out. the alternator went bad because i have a 1200 watt system on an 80 amp alternator, eventually the diodes got burnt out and are leaking a/c into a d/c system. while removing my shifter to do a custom center consol install, i kindof threw the overdrive button to the side. it broke apart and grounded some of the wires out. new transmission time .

:shhh: i do cocaine :/shhh:

>well, none of the stuff that happened was really my fault


I have heard that one a few times before....

Just kiddin dude....Any time I do electrical on my car now my wife won't ride in it for at least a week just to be sure its safe.

Lesson Learned.....


Chad

MODS:
3" PVC CAI, GST Muffler, Greddy 4-1 Header, AFX UDP, 55 mm bored TB, P&P Intake Manifold, Corbin intake spacer, gutted cat, Apexi S-AFC, KYB AGX Struts, Eibach Prokits, Excel TZ-10 Rims

>Another note...im not sure about you guys, but the circuit
>City by me is way cool about Car audio..the guys who install
>at this CC actually take the time to install things
>carefully and with quality...it's also re-assuring to see
>that the manager drives around a 98 Eagle Talon too, as his
>sound competion car as well. 2gnt! woo!


Thanks, dude! Although I'm not the guy around you it's cool to hear someone compilment Circuit City like that. We're the same in our shop. Although we've had our share of fuqups too. The best was when this guy came in asking us to hook up his amp and we didn't know that his remote wire was warn down and grounded out. Turned the shit on and it burned a line through his car. Luckily it was a 198? Ghetto hoopty and he really didn't care LOL