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I have several complaints covering a Variety of area's concerning the way I was treated at Circuit city as well as the poor craftsman ship that was used on my car.
I will start with the Alarm. After I was broken into, I thought it would be prudent to install an alarm before putting in the replacement components that I received from AJRS. I visited my local Circuit City, (store #3210 in Independence, on 1'st and main. AS I looked over the Alarms listed on the wall, I was approached by "Josh". He said that the best alarm they had was full of features that I would like, and is what is really needed for a good system. All this before he even asked what I wanted in an alarm. I asked some questions about a lesser alarm, and he continued to badmouth it and kept going back to the high end alarm. I was getting frustrated and told him that I could not spend more than $200. He continued to press the higher systems, saying things such as "for a few dollars more…" And he could not even tell me what the extra features were that the Viper 300 had over the Rattler 300 to justify the higher cost. I decided on the Rattler 300. I thanked him for his help and was about to leav "we can install that today if you like." I responded with; "Thank you but no, I want to get my locks fixed first." With a sneer he walked off, muttering "Whatever."
On October 15th, I called the local circuit City to set up an appointment to have my alarm, stereo and amplifier installed. I spoke with Bryan Williams the Installation manager. I explained that I wanted to get it all installed and asked if it would be ready by 2:00. He said that would be "No problem."
I arrived at the Roadshop at 10:00 when they opened. I spoke with "Josh". He inspected the car, and noticed that the thieves had stolen my stereo brackets and lower pocket spacer along with the stereo. He told me I needed to get the brackets and a lower pocket. He said; "You can call AJRS, your insurance company, Subaru,…whoever, I don't care, but you need to get the brackets and pocket yourself." And without even looking it up, he determined that he did not have a kit, or any brackets that would work, despite a salesman advising him that he could fabricate a bracket from the multitude of kits that lined 2 walls of the 3 bay garage. He proceeded to tell me that there would be no way to get it all in by 2:00. Keep in mind my wife had to re-arrange her school schedule on the day of her final to give me a ride back and forth to the road shop, based on Bryan Williams assurance that it could all be done in that time frame. Discouraged, I told Josh that I would go ahead and have just the alarm installed then. I left the car with Josh. I came back at 1:15. Josh ran through the tutorial quickly on the use of the remote. I did not catch a lot of it, but I had to get home to get ready for work, so I just verified with him that the box and everything was in the car, he said it was. On my way home I was at a light and noticed a wire sitting on the passenger side floor. I recognized it as the tweeter wire for the door speakers. When I got home I discovered that the wires had been pulled apart at the door connection. I understand that the connections that I made on the door speakers were not professional, but at the very least I would think that if your going to disconnect something while your working on someone's car, you could at least reconnect it instead of leaving it draped over the floor of the car. I began to become suspicious of the install after seeing the damaged wire on the floor. I looked in the engine bay to check the siren install. The siren wire had been draped across the engine bay with a total of two whole zip ties. It was sagging very close to the exhaust manifold as well. A very sloppy job. On top of all this, I opened the alarm box to discover that there was no paperwork at all. No instructions, no warranty card, nothing. He had kept everything, except the scrap wire that was in the box.
I called the next day and spoke with a install tech named "Kevin". He was very agreeable, and told me he had my instructions and other paperwork and would take care of the wire when I came to get the paperwork. Upon arrival, I spoke with Kevin, and we set an appointment for Friday the 19th for the rest of the stereo install. While I was there, Kevin put on some wire loom. It covered a little less than half of the exposed wire. At least the area over the exhaust was now covered. I will have to buy more wire loom and do the rest myself latter I guess. Latter that day, I drove nearly 2 hours to Lenexa Kansas to buy some brackets for the stereo from a fellow car club member.
On Friday, I arrived at 10:00am again for the stereo install. This time I spoke with Ronnie. When I got there he had his own vehicle in the bay and was working on it when I arrived. I had misplaced the install voucher from AJRS during one of several trips from my apt to the car with all the stereo components. After refusing to start the install without it, despite that fact that Josh had seen it and refused to hold onto it on Tuesday, I asked if he would please start it if I brought it back or had AJRS fax another one. He grudgingly agreed to do so.
I arrived at 1:30. I asked how the install went. He said it went good. He took me out to the car. I was appalled at what I saw. The stereo and the bottom pocket that I had to provide were recessed at least an inch into the dash! Sitting in the drivers seat, you cannot even see the top row of buttons on the stereo. On top of that, he told me that there was nothing that he could do. That was the best that they could do with it. And to make it worse, he had not even bothered to put any trim rings on. All the mechanical parts of the revolving mask were showing, along with the internals of the dash. It appeared to be a very shoddy and careless job. Ronnie then showed me where he put the Amplifier under the passenger seat, as I requested. He showed me where he installed the Amp's wired bass remote in the coin compartment. The wired remote is extremely loose, and rattles in the tray. Ronnie gave no indication before that it would be a problem or that it might be loose. At this point I was trying to check everything. I noticed that the wire from the tweeter was still on the floor of the car. I asked why he had no fixed it. His response was, "Well, we didn't install those speakers, and I don't know what he did, so I'm not touching it. You used electrical tape on it. I can tell. He did not cut it. It must have just fallen off." I had more than 12 inches of slack in the wire, with it being wrapped thoroughly with electrical tape, and it is in same exact spot that Josh installed the alarm in. And due to the condition of the wires, you could tell the wire had been pulled out of the electrical tape connection. It was probably in his way while he did the alarm install. Which is fine, Just put it back like you found it. The wires were exact matches, all that had to be done was match red with red, and red/black with red/black. But apparently that was too much trouble.
When I got to work I decided to check the amp connections. From the vantage point that I had, I could not see them very closely. I had the stereo on at the time. I moved to the passenger side of the car. To get a closer look, I slid the passenger seat forward. That's when the subs cut out. Not believing what I had just done, I slid the seat to the back. The subs came on. I slid the seat forward again. And again the subs cut out. At this point I thought this was going from a bad joke of an install, to a complete catastrophe. That is when I leaned on the passenger side door armrest shaking my head. That's when I noticed that the window and locks control switch assembly was slightly protruding upwards on the passenger side door. Sure enough the tab at the bottom of the assembly was broken off. I would give benefit of the doubt, because I don't know if you have to take the door skin off to install the alarm. I would assume not, but considering the terrible workmanship, poor attention to detail, and the way they had treated me and my car, I had found throughout the installs by circuit city, and the time that I discovered the damage, I found it very coincidental.
I was astonished at the blatant disregard for customer satisfaction, lack of responsibility, and total lack of professionalism. I brought up my concerns to the techs at the install desk and told them I would be contacting their manager Bryan Williams and his superior. Ronnie simply crossed his arms and leaned against the wall. Kevin tactfully tried to placate me by saying that he would try to fit a ring inside the gapping hole around the stereo. I felt that if it was not a concern of theirs when they were installing it, and they were only afraid of retribution from their boss. If I had not mentioned talking to their boss, they would have gladly let me walk out of there with a terrible install in my car. I see that as a total lack of integrity. And to be perfectly honest, I am afraid to let them back in my car, especially considering that they had several chances to prove themselves to be the highly touted techs that Circuit City says they are, but repeatedly showed otherwise. Treating me poorly the whole time, while doing shoddy work and causing damage to my car.
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