First let me express that I wish that no one has to go through this type of situation. Second, it sounds like plenty of us have.

It's been a week and half since I first discussed the damage done to my truck with my local stereo shop, where they told me they would take care of everything.

I have recieved not one phone call from them, However I've called them three times to try and get some plan together for resolution. Still no appointment to get the paint chips fixed or interior pcs fixed.

They did tell me the correct Pac-Audio interface is on order as well as a phoenix gold pld 6 to take the noise out of the system(yeah right) every expert I talk too other than them say it won't work.

They were supposed to call me today to give me an update......nada!

So far I've been just as pleasant as can be, while inside I feel like putting my boot in their collective assets!:guns:

I'm thinking next week I won't be so pleasant, not out of line by any means, but certainly more assertive.

This really sucks! and it's bugging the shit out of me.

maybe I need a drink! :chug:

If this ends up going shitty I will definetly let all the SoCal Boys where not to go.

peace out!

PLD-6 is a line driver for upping input voltage to the amps is it not? WTF good is that gonna do for noise... NONE that I'm aware of. I had a line driver from PG in my F150 with my A200 PPI amp, I didn't need it and took it out.

My guess is they ran the signal and power wire together...like a halfassed job. Mixing those wires creates noise (well so does an MSD 6AL too! lol)

Anyway, I'd go up there in PERSON. If they blow you off, DOCUMENT everything. Then get an atty to assist you. I have a few in my family so that's cool, but ask around with your friends to see. You could also take them to small claims court...

Devin, If you would not mind taking a trip down here I have a friend that does ALOT of high end stuff just like yours. I would highly reccomend him to you, maybe he can take a look at what was done and give you some advice. If you would like I will drop him a call tomorrow and bring him up to date on your problems. Sorry to hear you are having so much trouble. If you decide to deal with the shop in your area, maybe you and I should walk in together with a few friends. :guns:

niose. what noise. if it was hooked up right then there would not be noise. i have hooked up a lot of stereo's in the nbs trucks with tv's and ll and i never have to use noise suppressors. you are getting rooked dude.

generally our trucks are very difficult to create noise in. Now caddy's, Lexus and other luxury vehicles it is very difficult NOT to get noise in no matter how you run the wires.

A higher voltage line signal can reduce noise by allowing you to run the same volume but reducing the amplifier gain which amplifies EVERYTHING coming through that RCA. If you start with a high voltage signal you don't need to amplify it as much to attain the same volume. Hence why almost all decks are now 2.7v-8v (too bad not all of em are low impedence) nowadays instead of the 5mv they used to be.

But i agree with Hitman, something is wrong here for them to have to resort to any type of nois supression. IF they use any noise filters it will degrade the sound quality and that's the last thing you want in a $4k+ system.

Man, I wish you lived closer to me, I'd have taken your $6k and given you some stuff you could really brag about and I wouldn't have required you to see a body shop afterwards. :(


This is exactly why i get mad when people try to low ball me by sayin "ohh, the shop down the street said they'd do it for half the price"....... I tell em that's because usually you will get half the work and service. You always get what ya pay for in this world..

Keep us posted mate. I wish you luck. :chug:

brian, I'm trying to get my money out of them at this point because it will only cost me more if I go somewhere else. HOWEVER, that doesn't mean I'm going to be riding bitch much longer either! The thought in my mind is to give them to the end of next week and then I'm going to take some different action. At that point I would have no problem driving up there to get someone you recommend to look at the system.

hitman, 02denali, f8lpony, thanks for the info. What you all are saying is what I've been hearing from everybody other than "MY shop". I've posted on a couple of Car Audio boards(www.elitecaraudio.com and www.sounddomain.com) and they all seem to agree that the noise should not be there or I shouldn't need a line driver signal booster (some say don't work anyway) to fix the noise. And also that any such devices WOULD lower the SQ of the system.

Also, thanks for taking the time to respond with detail and content, I really do appreciate the help and insight.

Not to mention, I can't install my freakin Radix until this is all worked out!!!

A couple of quick things you can do to try an pin point the noise are:

Pull the deck out of the dash while it is playing and see if noise is reduced or gone.

Take a known good pair of RCAs and run em straight from the deck, over your seats to the amps. If no noise then your RCAs are either bad or ran in a bad spot.

Unscrew the amps and lay them on the carpet one at a time. Sometimes amps have a bad ground in them and will chassis ground themselves out and you must use rubber isolators to mount them.

Make sure you have not changed your plug wires to a non-insolated racing wire.

Ensure the RCA ends at the back of your deck are taped up or have the factory caps on em to keep them from grounding out.

If all else fails you can eliminate half of your system by parking a buddies car next to yours and running a set of RCAs from his deck to your amps. If you still get noise you know it is from your amps and beyond (speaker wires, speakers etc). If the noise goes away it is from your RCAs to your deck essentially.

Noise is a pain in the ass but usually fixable in a simple vehicle like yours. :)

Ohh, this is assuming that noise is from a running truck and through ALL speakers not just 1 or 2.

I think moregrip went with a high end Fujitsu-Ten (Eclipse) unit so there should be no need to crank up the amp line signal any more than what that deck produces.



Now all this talk of noise has raised an eyebrow with me. I have a wee bit in my F150, it's from the MSD box under hood. I'm 100% sure as when you disconnect the box, the noise is gone. Is there an inline noise suppressor that I can put on the power cable of that box back to my battery? It's very faint at low levels and gone around med volume.

I spoke to a few places and they told me they haven't see a vehicle with an MSD w/o a bit of noise...

I had that line driver in my F150, the deck is older in there (Pioneer Premier DEH-P720) but it's a badass HU...Organic EL, 3 sets of 4V outs, one non fading, X-overs, MOSFET power if I ran speakers off the deck, etc. I saw no need for the PLD-1 I had so it's in my closet.

for the money you paid, there should be no problems. you should be able to ride around with a big shit eating grin on your face. what are the possibilities of them taking it all out and giving you your money back?

what are the possibilities of them taking it all out and giving you your money back?


Will never happen. :( He would still have to spend money on the time they spent working on the truck. Even lawers can't make that happen.

yes, I'm using Eclipse AVN2454.

I wish I could "get my money back at this point" because I know dealing with them is going to be a royal pain in my ass.

Kind of ironic how a stereo shop is entitled to labor when one spends 6K, still has noise in the system, and they chip paint, scrape door panels, gouge plastic pcs, not to mention the scrape I got right in the middle of my JL 1000/1.

and it doesn't help when they say things like:

"we don't worry about what things look like behind the door panels"
"we are more concerned about how things sound than how they look"
"if you pay up front you will be taken care of sooner than those that pay at pickup"
"it's not like your truck is a show truck or anything"

It's taken the better part of my lessons learned in life not to reach back and slap a ho!

I don't believe the AVN units are high voltage. I believe they are 2.7v@330ohm. I could be mixed up though. I deal with Eclipse, Pioneer, Panasonic, Accel, and Rosen so with 10+ DVD/Nav units i get the confused. :)

As for entitled to labor. Yes they are no matter how shoddy the work. Now that being said, they are also responsible for any damages done to your truck while in their care unless you signed some specific waiver or liability. At my shop we do not guarantee against noise because there are too many variables and reasons why noise is present. If you spent $6K with us though and bought all BRAND NEW equipment from us we will tyake care of it because that's what a good shop should do PERIOD! Now if you came in with your own stuff or had performance parts on your car that are causing the problem then we try to meet you in the middle since it is not our fault. Good shops usually try to at least work with you on stuff like that.

Scratching your truck, amps, etc. is unacceptable and although it sometimes happens they should be working with you to correct the problem. We've replaced many dash pieces and even repainted a fender once due to an accident at my shop. Shit happens but you fix it.

As for the stuff you quoted them saying. OMG!! That is complete crap! i hope they go out of business soon and if they keep up these work ethics they will. :bs:

I don't believe the AVN units are high voltage. I believe they are 2.7v@330ohm. I could be mixed up though. I deal with Eclipse, Pioneer, Panasonic, Accel, and Rosen so with 10+ DVD/Nav units i get the confused. :) CHOP



LOL, nice! Sooooo, what ya think of my MSD problem? :confused:

I think you maybe be screwed as well. We have a customer with a 57' Chevy that we are installing a noise suppressor on Tue. or Wed. next week. I can't remember if his MSD box is still hooked up or not but if it is I'll let you know if it works.

Your noise is rpm variable I assume? I will ask the guys at the shop what they think and get back to ya :)

I think you maybe be screwed as well. We have a customer with a 57' Chevy that we are installing a noise suppressor on Tue. or Wed. next week. I can't remember if his MSD box is still hooked up or not but if it is I'll let you know if it works.

Your noise is rpm variable I assume? I will ask the guys at the shop what they think and get back to ya :)



LOL, it's not very apparent when you have a decent volume...not ear bleeding but loud enough to hear yourself talk over a conversation.

Nope, it's not an alt whine sound...it's the weird noise the MSD box makes. Put your ear beside it with the vehicle on and you'll hear it. Like a "eaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa" lol type of sound. It's electrical sounding.