Problem child

A hot-rod Chevy Bel-Air came in.  These cars are always a challenge. The motor is usually very loud, and they almost always have MSD ignition systems. I can combat the lound noise from the exhaust with a big power and efficient speakers, but the MSD is a high voltage coil which essentially is a bad RF transmitter in your car.  Not a terrible problem MSD makes a .25 farad cap that cleans up the ripple. -kind of.
    This Bel-Air particular makes the problem worse.  The MSD is mounted inside the car, not under the hood.  In fact it was hidden up under the dash and we didn't find it until half way through the installation.  The exhaust is composed of a set of black Jack headers to cherry bombs.  So right out of the shoot this car is a problem. Not to mention the customer is on a budget, a tight budget, and unfortunately he has really good taste. I sharpened my pencil and got to work after cutting the profit down to a slim margin We agreed on a system that would sound terrific in just about any car.
   We installed the gear, and it sounded great! Of course it had engine noise!  We called all over town to get the MSD cap to filter out the ripple and it sounded great with the engine running...on everything but the radio.
    You see the cap will fileter out the noise from the power source, but not the antenna.  When electrons travel in a closed coil the generate radio frequency, radio tuners look for radio frequency antenna's hunt for radio waves.
    So what do we do? We re-wired and move the MSD to the fire wall.  It got better but it still had noise in the on the radio.  We again re-wired and moved the MSD to the fender...even further.  Now we only get interference on weaker stations in the lower end of the band (the resonant frequency of the ignition must be close to 94 hz).  At the end of the day, it was pretty darn good. and we couldn't have gone to all the extra effort if the customer didn't buy the gear from us. Weather it's Electronics Depot in Altamonte Springs Florida or any good local shop, wants the car right and the customer happy. Even if they have to stay late, and do that little (or a lot) extra for free.


Patrick Siebert

No proof read sorry

       
Customer asked for Black kick panels...just sayin

Supplied audio gear!! Especially clones

    We want to supply the very best install possible regardless of what gear is brought to us. Some of the biggest issues we encounter is that customers do not know exactly the product works that they buy on-line and bring to us.  A modern head unit (radio) has hundreds functions and they all operate a bit differently. 
    A great example is some clone radio's have the ability to do Bluetooth, but not Bluetooth audio. That means you can use the phone to make calls but not play your music out of it.  Another great example is one that occurred today.  We had a customer that purchased a clone radio developed by Rosen Entertainment.  This radio provides steering wheel controls but does not provide cel-phone control from the steering wheel, only from the touch screen on the radio. 
    I usually go through a 5 minute process to explain to customers when we install his/her radio that some of the features may not work exactly like they think they will.  When they buy the product from a store that installs it they can usually give you insight to how the piece operates and maybe even let you play with it right there on the display. 
    If you are a retailer, please let the customer know that when they supply product the expectations of how the product works his or her sole responsibility (it does not matter they will still be made at the retailer that installed it).  That is not an excuse to install the product improperly, or give a bad demo but keep them fully informed.
    If you are a customer, please, please know what you are buying before you buy it.  In fact, just buy it from a brick and mortar retailer (real store) that you trust and have them install it.  That way you can let them take full responsibility of your happiness, if you do not you are tying the hands of the only person that actually wants to help you. The rest of the people just want to make a little money and ship a box out of the factory. 
     One store, one responsibility, one happy customer. The cheapest deal is rarely the best deal.  I see more angry internet customers then happy ones.

Patrick-