Hello fellow emper's (or is it riocar-ers now? :)

Anyways, I have a sad tale I'm hoping this most esteemed group of folks can help me with.

First off, I'm not a "car guy" I can't pull apart my dash in 5 minutes, so advice of "rip the puppy open and fix it" aren't what Im looking for. :)

My empeg was a "professional" install by the local Best Buy (Pleasant Hill, CA) they seemed to do a reasonable job, and aside from a weird power problem, that the fixed when I broght it back in, the empeg has been working flawlessly for almost a year now.

I got my tuner on Thursday. I wedged it into place, hooked it up, and lo and behold, the empeg didn't see it.

I tried to slide the sled out, and in the process the blue (amp switch) wire happily fell out of the back of the sled.

Aftermuch trials and tribulation, I found the right pin (I think) to hook it up to, and got my empeg playing again.

I noticed, however, when I was working on the sled that several leads (including at least the green and white ones going to the tuner plug) had been pulled out of the sled and electrical-taped together.

Lacking the skills and tools (not to mention pinouts) I didn't attempt to reconnect them to get the tuner working, but at least I had found the problem.

So here's my boggle.

Do I:
1> Take it back to the Best Buy that munched the sled wiring during installation and try to get them to fix it under the "lifetime installaiton" warantee? (do I trust them to fix it?)
2> Take it elsewhere in the SF Bay Area and pay more $$$ to get it fixed?
3> hap-hazardly try to break down the dash to get at the sled with enough slack in the wires to try to re-seat them myself?
4> beg on empeg forums for a fellow bay area owner to give me a hand with #3? :)

I'm failry sure the original installer happily clipped the ISO connector off the sled and put on the best-buy "honda install kit" attapter and spliced the wires that way, so just pulling the ISOs and installing a new sled doesn't seem to be an option.

Before I take it anywhere, I want to make sure I have a proper pinout of the sled.and have not found anything searching here or in the empeg.com documentation.

Please help: (

Thanks
-Scott

Before answering this, you might want to read my Best Buy instalation story because it sounds like you might be going down the same path.

Do I:
1> Take it back to the Best Buy that munched the sled wiring during installation and try to get them to fix it under the "lifetime installaiton" warantee? (do I trust them to fix it?)


Do NOT take it back to BestBuy and force them to fix it.They do NOT know what they are doing with these units and are making things harder for us with the installs.


2> Take it elsewhere in the SF Bay Area and pay more $$$ to get it fixed?
3> hap-hazardly try to break down the dash to get at the sled with enough slack in the wires to try to re-seat them myself?
4> beg on empeg forums for a fellow bay area owner to give me a hand with #3? :)


I would contact support@riocar.com and ask them what your best option is. You could fix the sled and re-install it but if Best Buy cut as many connections as they did with mine, Empeg may just replace it for you if you send the sled abck to them. Support can make that call for you. It would save you a lot of time and trouble over fixing the pin outs. One note, you will need to reove the sled in order to get at the pins to fix them. I have heard there are several good installers in the SF area but I don't think they would fix wiring like that.


I'm failry sure the original installer happily clipped the ISO connector off the sled and put on the best-buy "honda install kit" attapter and spliced the wires that way, so just pulling the ISOs and installing a new sled doesn't seem to be an option.


Honda INstall Kit? Oh this sounds way too familiar. If you decide to go on your own, give me a hollar. BestBuy did their work on my Civic which I totally had to re-do. Be patient and trust in your ability and you can fix/re-install this yourself.

Greg

Drakino, if you're reading this...

The new site you're creating needs a section on recommended vs. not-recommended install shops.

Ideally, it would be a very simple list that could be sorted by city or store name. It would look like this:

Best Buy, Norfolk VA ..... Not recommended .... details
SuperInstaller, Pittsburgh PA ... Recommended .... details
(etc.)

The details link could be testimonials and anecdotes, as well as telephone numbers and addresses of the stores.

Can this be done?

___________
Tony Fabris

FWIW I had the same problem with my tuner installation.
What I thought would be a 30 min. job, turned into an hour+ job. One thing is for sure, after pulling out all wires in the loom and soldering them, I don't anticipate any future problems.

BTW the tuner reception is fair compared to the reception of my Alpine 7390.
It's nice not to have to carry two units to and from the car though.

Mk2 #105 32g blue, w/tuner