Had my coupe ICE upgraded recently.

All standard audio components replaced, new tweeters in dash, 6.5" components in front door.

rears have 6.5" coaxial

dynomatt sound proofed in the doors and rear cards.

Kenwood amp (class D reference so small) placed behind the drivers rear brake light.

8 hours of labour at £50 p/h .. Is this the going rate of ICE installers, seems expensive to me?!

£50p/h?! Even if that's the going rate, that is rediculous!

Sounds a bit much.

PM TheAudioGuy.

Its not the £50ph that's the problem, its the fact it took them 8 hours

If they are audio experts, they should be fitting that amount of kit in half the time

I guess if it took 1hr possibly 90 mins at that rate to fit all the gear then that's ok but 8 hrs does seem alot.

it'd probably take me a week to do all that myself.

thats what I was thinking Nigel, but I thought I read on here it takes a hours to get all the seats out & back in again.

there is also fuses run from the battery to the amp in the boot which i left out

that is roughly the right time but no way near £400 to fit!

never pay hourly rate!, get a quote for all the work

for me you would of been looking at around £165 plus travel money for fuel as you way out of my area

yeah, only reason i did it locally was that I was visiting family nearby so was convienient and they had installed my Clifford so thought they would be reasonable.

never again, Once i've done the coupe thing and got my next car i'll organise something with you TAG!

On top of that I paid full RRP on the components and amp instead of buying it cheap online.

cost me a fortune, live and learn

I feel your pain! I personal can't do that unless they say cost no problem, there's the keys to the Ferrari then I charge but it comes out propper

That's rubbish about taking hours to get the seats out

I could have all the seats out of a Coupe in less than half an hour and back in again just as quick

In fact, with a Coupe, to fit all the speakers, you don't need to take the front seats out OR rear seat backs out - you just need to remove the rear seat base and release the rear seat backs from the chassis so that both sides pull down (like the ski hatch) - once that's done, you can easily get at the screws that hold the rear panels. So - if they're telling you it took hours to get the seats out, they are either lying or they haven't got a clue - why would they need to take the front seats out anyway?

The work to fit front and rear speakers AND do some soundproofing goes like this:-

1) Door cards off - 7(?) screws on each - 10 minutes per side
2) Remove speaker - fit new speaker - 10 minutes per side (including fitting new spade connectors)
3) Stick some dynamat to each door - 5 minutes
4) Re-fit door card - 15 minutes
5) Remove seatbelt lower mounts - 5 minutes per side
6) Remove rear seat back retaining nuts (2 x 10mm) 5 minutes
7) Remove rear seat base - 5 minutes
8) Remove rear cards - 5 minutes per side
9) Remove rear speakers - 5 minutes per side
10) Fit new speakers - 10 minutes per side, inc drilling holes and fitting new spade connectors
11) re-fit rear cards - 10 minutes per side
12) re-fit rear seat back and base - 10 minutes

Now I'm being extremely generous with some of those estimates (for example, the rear seat base comes out in one minute, not five) - however, I make that to be two hours.

I've never fitted an amp, but I rather doubt it accounts for the remaining six hours

You've been stitched....

Oh - forgot the soundproofing of the rear panels - add another 10 minutes per side

^ As above sounds like a stitch up.

Got pictures of your amp?

well they didn't say it took hours to get the seats out, I just remember seeing a thread on here about how long it took so assumed that was why there is a lot of labour.

The company is well known and does the Kenwood demo cars so has a good reputation although i did read in audio forum a couple of years back their charges were high, just didn't realise they were that ' high!

The amp (and the crossovers for the front speakers are mounted there as well) ...



It sounds good, but with £600 worth of speakers and a £400 amp (rrp prices) I expected it to .. it's just not worth the money I paid

hey duncan, All depends what quality of install you paid for and who did it? Although 8 hours is rank armature, less than a mornings work,[so 400 is taking the piss]even back in the 90's at a typical place I worked at you would have paid, £50 for front components, £45 for rear co-axels, £20 per door dynamat, and amp £50 all + vat, but you had times for installs etc i.e. on a coop, front components 30 mins, rear 30 mins dynamat 15-20mins per door and amp 45mins,this would have been a standard install wires cable tied routed and loomed nothing elaborate, a quality install from a good installer who would be an auto electrician, sound engineer, cabinet maker, upholsterer, fibre glass pro etc etc, would have designed the install showed you explained why where etc and quoted an overall price, but believe me if dissected £50 ph would be a low starting figure, for a high quality install, show car, quality finish etc on the invoice I usually put labour down to £65 ph. When you think halfrods £25+vat ish for a head unit install which is usually under 10mins there’s £150ph.

what speakers

your amp i think, £250

http://caraudiosecurity.com/shop/product/products_id/11573.html

JL Audio c6-650x (I think they're C6's in the front and c2-650's in the rear). That link to the amp is the same one as mine (Kenwood X4D)

That was the point I was making, I asked them to order the amp in and they did, but I paid full RRP for it. If I had bought the stuff online it would have been a lot cheaper and I would have just paid installation costs and the wiring that was required.

Bottom line is I was lazy and I realise now how much I have overpaid for the amp/speakers

well the front cost £359 and the rears cost £109...........so hummmmm.

personaly id be down there complaining my ass off!

not sure I can really do anything.

I guess it would be like going into Curry's and saying I don't want to pay the full RRP for this iPod Nano when I could have got it £20 cheaper off Amazon online.

Got to be worth a try. You dont need to be angry with them, just explain that you showed everyone on a couple of massive car forums what you've got and what you paid. You've been rolled over and they know it. If they want lots of business, they may well give you some good will.

Although I doubt it unfortunately.

best thing to do is phone them up, dont tell them who you are and get a qoute for the equipment you have and if its a different price then tell them "why did you rip me off then!" youv taken the p*ss and im comming back for a refund! then see what they say

£1400 for that entire setup?!?

And you say I must have a deep wallet. My 16vt will be runnning and looking nicely and hopefully I'll have change from that!!

Like gj88 says, got to be worth a try. You don't get if you don't ask. Try, you've nothing to lose and everything to gain, and shops don't like people complaining about prices in front of potential new customers, so make sure the shop is busy

Missed that. Perfect!

£1400 is a lot of money for that install.

It is a good placement of the amp.

It's actually about £1500 with the JL Audio RCA leads and the power cabling added onto it and VAT.

you're right it is a lot of money but then I did want good quality audio components. It's not that I can't afford it but when I look what i've got for 1500 notes it wasn't worth getting the shop to get the audio stuff in and install it.

The shop isn't local to me (well an hours drive away) and i'm not one to complain unless I have been screwed over. I think on this occasion i'm more annoyed at paying RRP prices for all the audio. I don't think the garages near to me are that far off 50 quid an hour labour either.

There is a local (1 mile up the road) car audio place near to me where I could get a quote from to compare and perhaps ask their hourly rate.

I just don't think for the hassle of complaining at them it's going to change anything, i've got everything I asked for. They did ask me whether I was going to supply the amp etc but I said no just order it in.

Duncan,

You start the thread asking "is it overly expensive", to which the answer is a conclusive yes, yet you don't want to take it any further with them?!

Did you just want to confirm your suspicions, as I don't see it making you feel any better now you have

I look forward to hearing your pimpmobile sorry, lovely original subtely modified plus soon

T

eh?

As in you've hit the nail on the head there