I wanted to pickup a new radio, so I went to circuit city since they have free install.
The guy said I would have to pay extra cause he would have to remove the amps for the speakers. Is this true? I thought just changeing the head unit would be fine.
What's the deal on this, is he just trying to rip me off?

 

No, it's true that our cars have external amps. Have to run new speaker wire to the speakers, or locate the amps and use the factory wiring, little more involved than if there were no external amps.

 

we have external amps? :| I installed new 6X9's and my deck and didnt mess with any of that...

 

Hey fillup05... i've gone through 4 stereos, including 1 that was installed by circuit city that burned out on me about 6 months later... anyways out of all of them besides the one installed by circuit city, you don't you have to mess with anything else besides the harnesses behind the stock stereo and the installation kit which sometimes comes with the harness... also, when circuit city installed that crappy insurance stereo, they didn't tell me anything about any extra charge for removing anything let alone amps... and for the 6X9's or any other speakers that are stock you don't have to mess with anything but the wires to make them play... i go by 1 rule alone when it comes to car audio... if you want your stuff to be the way you want it, DO IT YOURSELF... its better taking a whole weekend installing the stereo while reading the instructions then having someone else install it and have no idea what is going on behind the stereo... i speak from experiance... Have fun... besides... its not that hard after the first time... kinda sounds like ... ... ... nevermind... have fun...

 

is you car a premium? does it have a normal stock system or a bose? was bose even an option.... Anyways from what i remember there is an internal amp not external on my car and most tl's i have installed for 3.2/2.5. But then again none of my headunits have internal amps anyways

 

I got my headunit installed by Circuit City, and they diddnt tell me about any extra charge for "external amps". Like LDH said do you have a premium and does it have bose? Im not sure if bose came with the first gen premiums or not, but i heard that changing bose was a huge pain in the ass for people to do. Maybe thats what they are talking about. But they did mine from my stock one to my alpine one and it was free install cause i bought the unit from them. No extra charges though.

 

Stereos are the same in all our cars, premium or not. The amp is behind the stereo itself.

Next time I goof with my car, I'll take pics to show you.

 

For real? does it come out with the old deck? When I took my old head unit out, and put my new one in, i didnt notice an amp

 

wondered what that thing was but now that you mention it i remember it. but didn't think anything of it. so why hasnt anyone had to run new wiring cus of it?

 

Thanks for all the info. I have a bose, don't know if its premium or not. How can you tell?
Circuit city will only install the head unit for free. He said it will work but maybe later it WON"T if I don't remove the external amps and that would cost 120 extra. Guess the guy is just a slacker so FUK them. Also was wondering if I do change the head unit and leave the stock speakers how does it sound? Don't want to do a whole system upgrade.
Honestly I like the sound of the stock system just can't deal with the CDR not working sometimes.

 

What year is your car?

 

I have a 97 3.2 Went to another Circuit city, they told me the same thing but couldn't give me a price. They would just charge by the hour. The radio I want is only 160 bucks, which is worth it but not with the extra charge for install its not. He did give me another option which is to just buy a CD changer around the same price. Guess thats 1 way to go but dam cd changer thats so old school. Mp3 head unit holds more then all 10 disc and the hassle of burning disc. Owell atleast here in NYC we have alot of radio stations.

 

Its VERY easy to do yourself. The instructions that come with these head units explain it. Its just a matter of connecting the right wires (also explained).


Are you CERTAIN its a Bose? I thought they were all Panasonic?


Take a picture! I think only the RL's and 1997 CL had Bose at the time.

 

I agree, I've done a decent amount of mods to my TL on my own, and putting a new deck in was actually very easy. The worst part, was taking the time to wire all the wiring harness wires and the stock harness together...and that just took time...its not hard to match colors and splice wires! not knocking you man, just saying thats the worst part, and it wasnt hard at all!

 

Honestly I don't know what brand it is just repeating what circuit city told me.
I give up on them just thought it was a good deal when I saw the free install sign.

 

You didn't use an aftermarket harness? They make life SOOO much easier. Since I had to run speaker wires from my amps in the back anyways, I just used one of the factory harness adapters. Can't use the factory speaker wires with the xternal amps, and wouldn't work anyways cause car had factory external amps. The the harness plugs right into the factory harness and gives you WAY more wire to work with. All the wires are pre-labelled so you just hook them up to the wires on the harness from your deck and away you go! No spicing needed!

 

hey cornflake how hard was it to run speaker wire through the door grommets? I haven't tried in my tl yet but in every other car i've tried it in, it sucked.

 

Well LDH, I'll be honest, I haven't done it yet! When I first got the car, I threw the system in cause I was going camping that weekend, so I wanted it. I just did the speaker wire the cheasy way by just running it out from the panel an d into the dash and put wire loom over it, intending to fix it later. Well it is MUCH later and I still haven't fixed it yet. I will be soon though, when I re-do my entire system in the next few weeks. I know that me Integra was a pain, had to un-clip the harness from the car, drill out a hole in both the end on the door, and the one in the door jam where there were four empty wire pins in a one corner and feed the wire through. Was a pain, but WELL worth it as you couldn't see the wire and this gave me MUCH better gauge wire than the fdactory wiring. I'll let you know how tough it is when I get it done. Or if you get it before me maybe you could tell me!