do it yourselfers

tonanzith wrote: Sorry but I do NOT agree. I try to help people as much as possible and find that MOST individuals STILL find it too complicated to handle and/or still manage to screw it all up and BECAUSE I was willing to advise them, I end up being the FIRST person shop they come to to get it all worked out... By the way, MY shop has been doing great. 12 years strong. MOST failure is due to poor management or resources. I.E. inadequate advertising and/or money management.

You know. One off the shops here had a sign for the longest time that said: "Advice will be given for free and with out any guarantee or warranty. Advice taken and used wrongly, will cause you to be laughed at and charged an extra 20% when we fix it" They took it down after someone tried(and failed) to sue them for that 20% charge. Still like the place. They will sell wire connectors and random connectors at a decent price(charged me $2 for a side post GM terminal extender). Where as the other place in town loves to mark that stuff up a few hundred times over their cost(quoted me $15 for the same extender...)

Good one renswic. Funny - but I interpret the "and charged an extra 20% when we fix it" to relate to the free advice, hence 0.2 x $0 = 0 extra charge. However I'm sure that if that customer could prove that the were charged 20% extra AND they were laughed at (a necessary condition) because they used unwarranted free advice wrongly, they saw the possibility of recovering 16.7% of what they were charged. However I suspect the court decided that the customer accepted the conditions of the contract. Lucky the shop did not guarantee failure or the stupidity of customers etc - that could be a long drawn out case which the shop would have lost. (Hence why guarantees are NEVER made.) CAVEAT - legal interpretations in this reply are based on my interpretation of Australian legal interpretation and law and may be wrong due to my unqualified expertise or legal precedents. Moral - never express any sense of humor or sarcasm - Caveat Emptor! (What's Latin for "the expressor"?)

internet's changed the way people do things a long time ago. better get used to it....

Reading up on the internet and even seeing photos of how something SHOULD be done, VS actual trained technicians with YEARS of experience ACTUALLY doing those things are completely different...Gary Sather

That last post is so true, I'll do anything electrical but last Christmas my alternator belt went. Naturally front wheel drive, engine side ways, serpentine water pump, AC and power steering belt to be removed first, it took me ages to work out that the tensioners were worm drives rather than pulling the components out on a pivot then tightening them. Point is there's no substitute for hands-on.

Shocking isn't it! You'd think that more trained technicians with years of experience would get it right! (I exclude that 20-year "expert" that wanted to put a capacitor across a LED's PWM etc etc. Oh wait - he was on the net, but he was a trained and experienced professional (allegedly), but luckily I was there to (try to) set him straight.) PS - Sorry Howard - your reply snuck in under mine. Not to say that I was thinking of some experts that are trained etc AND know what they are doing. AND are bluddy excellent to boot (meaning - but not limited to - technically speaking).

This has been an interesting read to say the least. Experience can be defined many ways. I am not a trained installer, nor am I looking to be. I got my experience in electronics while dodging bullets and mortors in Viet Nam. I was assigned to an infantry unit that had no radio repairmen at all. I picked up hundreds of pieces of communication equipment and used all the common sense I could muster, exchanged parts and got two truckloads of radios and communication equipment back in service without having access to repair parts. I soon became Senior Radio repairman and then Communications Chief, even though we later got 4 school trained radio repairmen. Point is... sometimes common sense and a desire to learn goes a long way. I am since, a totally disabled Vet and a lot of things I can no longer do. However, I came to this site to hoping to find information about retrofitting a factory Nav system onto a non-Nav vehicle because I checked with literally dozens of supposedly reputable installers and they told me it could not be done. One told me it would be easier to do brain surgery. Definition of EXPERT: EX= A has-been. SPERT= A drip under pressure. I have been a professional in the military for long enough that I could no longer serve because of age and medical problems. I am currently a professional Motorcycle Safety Instructor. I am told that we are not allowed to give anyone advice or training outside of the classroom / riding range. Me not giving out any advice or tips will not cause the rider to not ride, but will let him / her continue to ride unsafe, possibly causing them to be killed or run over one of your family members and kill them. I will agree that you can give out information and if someone does not have the ability to follow instructions so as to do the job right, it is frustrating, but they may come to you to repair their mistakes. Another point that was made earlier, because someone holds the title of an installer, doesn't mean he knows what he is doing. Some of the installers I have come across I will not let them touch my car, or lawn mower for that matter. Whether someone wants to help out another individual or not it is up to them. It all depends on how it makes you feel. Personally, if I help someone and it turns out well, I feel very good about it. Does this mean I am going to be kicked off the forum?

hurst01. Some good points but as you said so yourself, hands-on experience to me is the be-all and end all. In my case hands-on came a few years before electronics logic, usually prefaced by me asking why or what are...The big trick for me was always looking at other people's installs and asking myself, is there anything I can learn from this, would I do it better next time? The problem is attitude. Many DIY people storm in without thinking an have a "this is easy" mind frame till the problems start. Half the time they aren't reading the instructions or researching their vehicle.. They never read my bottom line which to me is the most important part. Ref the Sat Nav, what vehicle, I'll tell you whether it's do-able or not

Salutations to you both! I can relate to all the above: ex-spurts; necessity is the mother of invention; formal qualifications mean little. My education preceded my qualifications (thank Dog!). I recall well "explaining the impossible". The funny(-NOT!) thing is that not much has changed since. But why not help & suggest? I still learn by teaching others. That's what I call a double-win situation (meaning from my selfish POV only).

As far as the DIY'ers go I honestly cant be mad at them. Especially when they just listened to salesman go on and on about how easy it really is, then they'll talk to the cooky installer (you know the one who knows everything has an answer for it all hes just had the unfortunate luck of working on cars with bad BCMs or always seems to get the busted bypass) he usually agreeing with the salesman. It would be nice if just once the customer would ask why hes up here and not in the back working on one of the cars waiting. I get diy guys in all the time, Il give em pointers here and there but I refuse to touch a piece of their equipment without a issuing a charge. We usually get more for fixing their stuff then we would have installing from the start. Today I was given a charger, the owner wanted his factory sounds improved, he had a decent factory 7 speaker system already. My boss/salesman sells him to sets of speakers and a four channel. He comes back with one line out converter. Then its my fault when I cannot make that car sound better then when it came in. Even tho I explained why this wasnt going to be a great a sound. Then he decides to leave instead of waiting for the customer who was sure to be upset. When I asked my boss who claims to have 20+ years exp. why he didnt focus on a new source I was told "proper sales technique starts from the trunk up". I can see why people want to diy. 1 12" mtx 9500 4ohm dvc 1 8100d and 1 1501d almost loud enough to cover the sounds of my car dying.