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Does anyone else get to clean up the mess after the amateurs get a shot?
Let me be clear: I have no problem with people who like to do things for themselves, and who educate themselves, buy the right tools and materials, and take the time to do the job right. I will always help these customers as much as I can. But if you're going to do that, it's critically important that you have the two following qualities:
* You had better be willing to read the manual
* You need to be able to recognize when you're in over your head.
In my profession (mobile electronics installation) I suspect I have the highest proportion of customers who either think they already can do the job better than I, or think they know someone who can. The best installer in town is always "my neighbor's kid" or "my dad". Yes, I know you computer folks get to deal with a lot of this as well, but when was the last time you got to fix a computer where someone started by removing the old component, then immediately got a set of wire cutters and cut off every available plug so that all that remained was bare wire ends?
For a lot of the do-it-yourself car radio installers, they'd much rather deal with wires than plugs, so they remove the plugs first off. Then they take the wires coming from the new radio, and start matching up the colors and splicing the wires together. Only then do they realize an important fact of car audio installation: Vehicle manufacturers do not want you to replace the radio. Therefore, they do not use standard wire color codes. They use their own color codes, and they aren't necessarily the same between different models. Trying to match up vehicle wire colors with after-market wiring colors will NEVER work.
When the car comes to me, they try to put the best face on the situation. "We already started it for you; all you have to do now is...."
Of course, the one who hacked up the wiring is never the same person who brings me the car.
It's always "my boyfriend", "my brother", "my dad", "my husband", or "my buddy". I tell them I hope they're on good terms, because it's going to cost more money (sometimes a lot more) because of what that person did.
Some of the typical sucky DIY'ers:
--Someone's dad, who put a new radio in his old car twenty freaking years ago, and assumes nothing has changed since then. Believes wire harness adapters are a rip-off. Sometimes wants to buy a "booster EQ", which no one has made in several years.
--Someone's buddy, who has helped a couple friends put radios into their cars and assumes all cars are alike. Believes wire harness adapters are only for people who don't know what they're doing. Sometimes doesn't bother putting a fuse on the wire they connect to the battery because "there's already one on the amp".
--Someone's boyfriend, who hacks up his lover's wiring because it's the manly thing to do. Believes anything that goes wrong in the installation is the result of our selling defective merchandise to his girlfriend. In constant fear of revealing to his girlfriend that there may be something he doesn't know everything about.
--Home electricians, who assume that car wiring is just like house wiring, only easier. Believes that since wire nuts are the professional standard for connecting wires in a house, they are also the professional standard in his car (trust me, you don't use 'em in a car). Immune to advice, logic or instruction manuals; his superiority to a lowly car audio installer is taken for granted.
With the exception of the last category, every one of them sees me mostly as free phone technical support when something goes wrong, as it always will.
Let me be clear: I have no problem with people who like to do things for themselves, and who educate themselves, buy the right tools and materials, and take the time to do the job right. I will always help these customers as much as I can. But if you're going to do that, it's critically important that you have the two following qualities:
* You had better be willing to read the manual
* You need to be able to recognize when you're in over your head.
In my profession (mobile electronics installation) I suspect I have the highest proportion of customers who either think they already can do the job better than I, or think they know someone who can. The best installer in town is always "my neighbor's kid" or "my dad". Yes, I know you computer folks get to deal with a lot of this as well, but when was the last time you got to fix a computer where someone started by removing the old component, then immediately got a set of wire cutters and cut off every available plug so that all that remained was bare wire ends?
For a lot of the do-it-yourself car radio installers, they'd much rather deal with wires than plugs, so they remove the plugs first off. Then they take the wires coming from the new radio, and start matching up the colors and splicing the wires together. Only then do they realize an important fact of car audio installation: Vehicle manufacturers do not want you to replace the radio. Therefore, they do not use standard wire color codes. They use their own color codes, and they aren't necessarily the same between different models. Trying to match up vehicle wire colors with after-market wiring colors will NEVER work.
When the car comes to me, they try to put the best face on the situation. "We already started it for you; all you have to do now is...."
Of course, the one who hacked up the wiring is never the same person who brings me the car.
It's always "my boyfriend", "my brother", "my dad", "my husband", or "my buddy". I tell them I hope they're on good terms, because it's going to cost more money (sometimes a lot more) because of what that person did.Some of the typical sucky DIY'ers:
--Someone's dad, who put a new radio in his old car twenty freaking years ago, and assumes nothing has changed since then. Believes wire harness adapters are a rip-off. Sometimes wants to buy a "booster EQ", which no one has made in several years.
--Someone's buddy, who has helped a couple friends put radios into their cars and assumes all cars are alike. Believes wire harness adapters are only for people who don't know what they're doing. Sometimes doesn't bother putting a fuse on the wire they connect to the battery because "there's already one on the amp".
--Someone's boyfriend, who hacks up his lover's wiring because it's the manly thing to do. Believes anything that goes wrong in the installation is the result of our selling defective merchandise to his girlfriend. In constant fear of revealing to his girlfriend that there may be something he doesn't know everything about.
--Home electricians, who assume that car wiring is just like house wiring, only easier. Believes that since wire nuts are the professional standard for connecting wires in a house, they are also the professional standard in his car (trust me, you don't use 'em in a car). Immune to advice, logic or instruction manuals; his superiority to a lowly car audio installer is taken for granted.
With the exception of the last category, every one of them sees me mostly as free phone technical support when something goes wrong, as it always will.
It's not like the stock wiring was perfect though--some of the components had a well-deserved reputation for sucking...and any attempts at 'repairing' their wires just made things worse. Because of that, it's no wonder that many MGB owners fit fire extinguishers on the transmission tunnel.
I'm usually just holding a flashlight or helping differentiate wires, but I've noticed that he never starts a project (like installing all the stereo equipment into his pretty new car) without doing ALOT of research first. He'll go online and find several different wiring diagrams from several different sites, and follow up to make sure they all match before he starts. He also has no problem admitting when he's in over his head, which is super.
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