Car audio horror stories

[Slo_Ride 5,000+ posts]

Tough to be wrong when you only post dad jokes.

Tough to be intelligent when you're a f*cking moron, huh?

 

[Firewalker]

Someone here joined and posted this back in 2019 iirc & asked why his subwoofers wouldn't work. Look at where the speaker wires are. Not too mention "Dual" amplifier,lol good ole Walmart garbage!

 

[Kickstand Premium Member]

This didn't happen to me so to speak but I was present for it.
I installed an amp and subs in a buddies car.
The amp was old school 90's so it has a dongle on the side for the speaker wire but it was 10+ years old and both sides of the dongle were gone so there were just wires coming out of a hole on the side.
A few moths down the road I managed to get my hands on both sides of the speaker wire Molex so I was going to put it in for him.
He showed up one morning to get it done but I had go out for an hour but my room mate said he would do it. He was a mobile appliance tech for sears and well schooled in car audio so I left them to do it and said I would be back in an hour.
I came back to a sh*t show.
He put the speaker wire plug in just fine but then decided he wanted to re wire the power and ground.
The power wire was fine but the ground wire would not come off the board.
To the extent that he pushed so long and hard with the soldering iron on it that melted the board around the ground destroying the amp.
The amp in question was an old school Rodek RA2300. The original more squared ones with all the little fins.
Not something that could easily be replaced.
Morel of the story, if it isn't broken don't fix it.

 

[SlugButter]

witnessed a Pyle sub actually being used in a real car once. It flopped around like a fish in a box I made from beautiful birch. I probably killed a unicorn that day. I can still recall covering my horror with a smile when he said “it sounds really good”......as he drove away bumping salt-n-peppa. My faith in all of humanity was lost that day.

 

[metalheadjoe 10+ year member]

Tough to be intelligent when you're a f*cking moron, huh?

Oh no, you called me stupid! You're a witty one!

 

[AnthonyO 10+ year member]

This happened years ago. I installed 4 Bostwick 10's in an isobaric setup, 6.5 components, 2 3" Center Channel, 3 Rockford Fosgate Amps, and an external crossover. Spent all day doing this setup. Wiring, sound deadening, etc. Then turn it on and only the drivers side comes on. So I spend another 3 hours troubleshooting, only to find out the bandpass switch on the crossover was on. Turned it off and voila.

 

[2RZ-FE 10+ year member]

I almost bough a Skar sub

 

[ThxOne Premium Member]

My very first ever car stereo related install. 1965 Chevy Truck. EQ/Booster install. A buddy ask me to put it in for him and I said sure. By the end he had no functioning headlights.... oh, and no sound. The lights on the EQ/booster did come on though so I was proud of that at least.

 

[Popwarhomie 5,000+ posts]

I almost bough a Skar sub

I got goosebumps just reading that.

 

[Kickstand Premium Member]

This goes back to the late 90's
I had a Kicker comp gold series 15, you know the ones with the gold writing on the dust cap.
It was shoe horned into the back of a civic couple.
I traded it for 2 Dr. Crankenstien 10's cuz I wanted more space in my trunk

 

[1aespinoza 10+ year member]

I almost bough a Skar sub

✌ They bump pretty darn good though.

 

[shredder2]

In 1995 or so I helped a friend install his new amp, sub and enclosure into his car. It was a late July afternoon in Tucson, 110 degrees out and in a rush (can't remember why). He had already run the power wire, all red of course with no fusing. We knew our **** (we thought... Lol) so we figured it would be quick.
Well... With sweat dripping all over my glasses and being distracted as I was... I reversed power/ground at the amplifier and when we connected it at the battery (no fuse) the amplifier started billowing smoke... Hard.
For some reason it took time to disconnect the thing and we just stared at each other for a second afterwards and watched the smoke clear from the cabin.
I knew the amp was toast so we just pulled it and I thought I'd be big so I offered to foot the repair. (big mistake)
In 1995 that amp was still semi expensive (RF Punch 200dsm) and after calling around there was only 1 local place to get it fixed. The shop mentioned was one I avoided at all cost because msrp was chiseled in stone on their items.
I took it over there and waited pensively for the bad news so I could give the go ahead.
This was one of THOSE places mind you, you know the type... More salesmen than installers and they were as knowledgeable and insistent as the old Circuit City "sales help" was. You HAD to deal with the sales guys... My friends working there couldn't even help.
Long story short is a $100 total install (labor & materials) ended up being $350 out of pocket but I suppose he was happy eventually... It banged great.
I learned to always insist fusing the battery minimum and for the wire size that day.
Ahhh.... Memories

 

[Bobbytwonames 5,000+ posts]

When you absolutely have to have a fourth order.

 

[Deiimos]

First one I can think of is a cousin bringing me a friend’s car that the guy just installed a new head unit in and it had no sound. He even had the shop manual showing the pinout of the stereo. Problem was he looked at the diagram from the wrong direction, meaning sometimes they show connectors from the back or front but you have to pay attention to how you are viewing it. Somehow it powered up with 12v going to a speaker output, but it was way wrong. The head unit amp was trashed after this so after I rewired it I told my cousin his best bet was trying to get a replacement from the store. I used my DMM to confirm all of this and rewire properly, but it was brought to me after the damage was done.

One of my own personal mistakes I remember. I was testing an amp and swapped subs or rewired or something, all went well testing whatever amp it was, then changed back to my main amp and of course rewired the sub and put it back in the box (Kove Armageddon 15"). Well, sub was not making bass at all, but during my troubleshooting I noticed interior lights dimming real bad when bass played. As it turned out I accidentally wired one of the coils out of phase so it was just seeing an old MTX 1501D and not moving. Mind you I didn’t sit there and leave it cranked since there was clearly some issue, but would turn it up and check voltage and play with the RCA cables and such, I had presumed maybe a bad RCA cable for some reason at first. The sub worked once I corrected it, but it didn’t live too long after this mistake. Just a life lesson on not to rush things and double check.

 

[Buck 5,000+ posts]

We had a dude with an old school monte carlo that we did a 2 JL 12 or 13w7's ported box for. His alternator wasn't charging, and his batteries were at about 10.5 volts. And he was getting mad because his system wasn't loud. We had to have like a 30 minute talk because the dude didn't even understand that his alternator wasn't charging. He got it fixed, and his trunk was flexing hard lol, he was surprised how loud it was. 10.5v on old batteries, that's not gonna be much juice. But it's our fault that the box isn't loud.....