Circuit City..

[Johniboi]

Yo guys, ive been thinking about getting me a new stero system for the V. Ive been looking around and i saw at circuit city that everything was on sale and also if you purchase anything over 99$, they install the system for you. I guess what im asking is should i be able to trust them with my car and what theyre gona do to it? I got a buddy who could do it for me but hes too busy fixing his car and im not tryin to bother him...Anybody got their system installed by them and had no problems????

[Neo Xian Wu]

well, really, i would imagine it somewhat varies by area. not everyone from that particular store might be as precise or competent as guys from another store. i had work done a couple years ago by a circuit city, and they did a good job imho. i would shop around and maybe see if anyone you know locally has had an install there.

[Johniboi]

i guess thats a good idea...just wanted to hear from the experts you knoww?? lol

[jfanaselle]

You should look for specific reviews from your local store to develop a good opinion. However, in general, you're better off having your stuff installed at a shop than having "a buddy" do it, becuase they can be held accountable and your buddy can't. Basically, if it breaks, you just drive back to Circuit City and tell them to fix it. If your friend accidentally shatters your windshield with a screwdriver, you're plumb out of luck.

I would recommend going to google and typing in something like "circuit city (city name here) install" and seeing if you get any comments on message boards or review sites. Just know that for every negative comment online there are at leaste 100 un-reported positive experiences. Also, the free installation that they offer usually doesn't include the dash kit, antenna adaptor and wiring harness that'll be required, and they inflate the cost on this stuff sometimes. Find out if they'll allow you to bring your own parts, and if so, check ebay or versaspeed.com before paying Circuit City's price. If it's comparable, then go for it!

Finally, I certainly wouldn't advise against doing the install yourself. Even if you've never touched a stereo in your life, it's quite simple, especially if you use the how to in the tutorials section on this site: http://www.nissanversa.org/tutorials.shtml Again, the only benefit to having it done at a shop is that you can hold them accountable for any mistakes.

[Ever Victorious]

I'll second what jfanaselle said. The only reason I didn't tackle it myself when i got the DVD head unit was because I didn't know how the wiring for the parking brake safety switch worked.

When I put my stock stereo back in after that one was stolen, I realized how EASY a non-DVD head unit is to install. Easiest car I've ever worked on, stereo-wise.

[chaos2000]

I use to work @ circuit city as a car audio sales/installer and they do a good job and the work has a warranty but as for the free install, it does not include the dash kit, antenna adapter or the 2 wiring harness that they use. But the labor is taken out of the price of the stereo so that when you have to buy the harnesses they make there profit. But i would trust them with your car because if they brake anything them they have to replace it with brand new oem parts from the dealership.

[srellim234]

I quit shopping a Circuit City when they laid off their most experienced people in the stores because they claimed they were making too much money and then gave bonuses to the top executives for cutting expenses. Quality of service and advice at the local stores really went south when that happened. I traded emails with their VP of customer service at the time (I was a directing a national customer service program for a company in another industry then) and her reply was a form letter stating simply that the short term stock price for the investors was more important than the human beings or the long term business.

[BBISHOPPCM]

Here here. It seems all electronics and computer stores have taken this path. It's a crying shame; the very people who made their companies successful are the first ones to be axed when the corporate belt-tightening begins. Been to a RadioShack lately?

The following is a hypothetical conversation between myself and a RadioShack salesnician;

Me; "Hi, I'm looking for some Sealed Lead Acid battery cells to rebuild a battery pack for my 18 year old Macintosh Portable"

RadioShackGuy; "Like, dude, just throw it out and buy one of our totally cool Compaq laptops. They have webcams and big memory"

Me; "I'm not into webcams. I'm also looking for a (I hold up some electronic component), would you happen to still sell these? It's for a power supply from a Macintosh 128.

RadioShackGuy; "Dude, a Macintosh 128 MB? That TOTALLY SUCKS!!!!"

Me; "128 KILOBYTE. And that's not relevant. It's for a power supply"

RadioShackGuy; "What's a kilobyte? that's so OOOOLD. Buy this R/C helicopter. Buy these AA batteries. Here, check out this kick-awesome stereo... (20 minutes later, he self-destructs, taking out the entire store).

The End.

[jfanaselle]

That exact scenerio happened to me when I went to radio shack yesterday.

Seriously though, I agree that it's unfortunate what Circuit City did with all of their sales associates. To be fair, they didn't lay off most of them... they just "re-structured" their pay to no longer include comission, which drove the majority of them out. The ones who remained were laid off.

However, historically, any company that down-sizes is done so by laying off the highest paid employees, with the exception of executives. I work for Sony Electronics and about 4 years ago, they "moved" the corporate headquarters from New Jersey to San Diego. This was done specifically to drive out everyone that had been with the company for 10-19 years, because they were offered early retirement incentives, or they could relocate to their "new position" that didn't pay as much and required the employee to relocate entirely at their own expense. They went about it the right way by offering people with tenure a golden parachute, but everyone else was pretty much screwed and about 50% chose to relocate and 50% chose to seek employment elsewhere.

Now, almost 5 years later, the company is re-evaluating which jobs specifically need to be performed from an office or headquarters location and can't be done from home. Many of these people could have kept their jobs if the company had made this decision 4 and a half years ago, but it was intentionally done to weed out the "stale" employees. I'll admit that we've seen some great innovation and progress since, especially at the lower level (where I work!).

[Mubbly]

I worked at Ccity for over a year. I came in one morning and everyone was called over for a meeting. As it turned out, anyone making 51 cents above their pay bracket was to be fired. They got rid of 3 of our best employees! Two awesome guys from car audio and a girl from customer service. This was not their fault, as managers had put them beyond their pay bracket. Congrats on weeding out your best employees!

Ccity is going way down hill, I don't see that they will last much longer against Best Buy.

...I wouldn't wish retail on anyone...