I voted not NOT Recommended.
And here's why.
This is part of a thread I already have(
http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/sound-...swift-ice.html) ,but I'll repost for the benefit of the forum members.
IT’S A LONG POST SO GET READY TO READ A LOT IF YOU ARE READY TO FIND OUT WHATS ALL THE HYPE ABOUT “DRIVEN” IN REALITY.
It all started back in July,after reading numerous posts about the “quality” of work being given at “driven”.
The first stage involved me getting the Bull Audio Components as suggested by the Manager along with a Pioneer Head unit which I agreed to as I had very limited knowledge about audio back then.
While getting this Installed, one of the installer scrapes off plastic from the power window switch holder on the door panel. I pointed this out to the manager who agreed that he will get it rectified after the install is complete.
Install done, and his solution for the plastic scrapping- Put some black tape on it! I’m a little taken aback by the poor quality of the solution and I refused him to use it. I decided to get it rectified later on, as I was short on time. This was back in July.
I faintly remember when a TeamBHPian had faced such an issue with his car, and after bringing it to the attention of the SHOP owner on team BHP, he agreed to get the particular part replaced from his own pocket.
http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/sound-...ml#post1585491 (Ritz ICE setup at Evo bangalore - sad experience)) Though I don’t expect such a responsible behaviour, but even the slightest gesture matters.
Fast forward to November, and I’m itching for an Amplifier and a SUB, I thought of giving Driven another chance at my car and after reading numerous positive reviews which came up in this duration.
Wrong choice again!
I decided for bull audio sub and Kenwood AMP that suited my budget, and for the wiring kit I decided to install the JBL 8AWG, as it suited my needs perfectly and told the Mr.Rana(the manager) to procure it for me.
On the Install day, he told me that the JBL 8 AWG kit is no longer available, and he has the Scosche kit which was much better as compared to the JBL kit in his opinion(why wasn’t I Informed about this earlier??), I agreed with his judgement and told him to go forward.
The kit was in transit as we decided this, and the manager promptly gave instructions to his boys to go about and lay other RCA’s required which were available at that time.
While we were finalising the wire etc. He suggested that I use Audison wiring for speakers which costs at about Rs.90 per metre and that the speaker wire that comes with the kit is apparently not very good(?), and I asked that how much approximately would be required for my car, and he told me 10 mtrs!(Which I later found to be much more than required and was confirmed by another installer that I don’t need more than 6 metres to wire from front to the back of the car and the
fact I later discovered loops of excess wiring being stored under the carpet ,I also learned that having excess loops will ultimately effect the sound quality )
So in total I’m paying 900 for wiring the components alone, mind you , this is the wire from the AMP to the crossover only.
Sigh, I thought ok,go ahead,a while later the scosche wiring kit arrives. And apparently this also contains some speaker wire (around 20 feet) which was of pretty good quality and was OFC which as per my half baked knowledge was sufficient in terms of gauge too which I later found could save me some money by being utilised instead of using Audison all over,as he did for another customer’s car in front of me.
As the Power kit was being opened I glanced at the Power wire, hmm, this seems to be thin, it read 6.5mm on the side, now at this point I wasn’t aware how many mm thick wire is equal to AWG, so I trusted the Manager’s Judgement on the wire being 8 gauge as he assured me earlier that this is 8.
While this SUB+AMP install was taking place , I asked him if he could do anything about the plastic part that had been damaged in the earlier install, and his response= these things happen and we can’t do anything about them so not point in talking about this anymore. I was a little taken aback by the rude attitude.
As I’m a DIY guy and nothing can replace the feeling of something you made, working in front of you I decided to build my own sub box.( THANKS NAVIN and LBM for the approval and design respectively)
Now I know, SUB boxes aren’t a child’s play, so I did my fare share of research on it before building it,I downloaded the Bull Audio Manual (
http://www.google.co.in/url?sa=t&sou...lFz3RQ&cad=rja) and went through the volumetric requirements of it.
1.25 Cu ft. It said for a balanced application, I built a box measuring 1.26 Cuft.(15.5x15x13inches using 0.75inch thick MDF)
While the sub was being plonked to see if it fits the box I had made, Mr.Rana glances at the box and he’s like WOAH, don’t use this, this is wrong, and the sub won’t work in this big box, and it might damage it. I’m a little taken aback by what he said , yes, the box was a little larger than the usual boxes he sold, yes it wasn’t so fancy looking, BUT, I built it as per specs , with non parallel sides, applied silicon sealant on the edges, and sealed it perfectly.
And now Mr.Rana tells me, that I’m wrong and he instructs his boy to start unscrewing his sub back out.
During this I was pleased to meet Mr.Gunbir who was kind enough to share the ocean of knowledge he had.
As we had this discussion, I asked Mr.Gunbir on his take on my box and he said that, yes, it’s a little larger than the usual boxes they sell but it’ll definitely work. After he gave the go ahead, only then Mr.Rana allowed me to use the box. Phew!
As it turns out the box was perfect and suited my needs and Mr.Gunbir heard it after the install and agreed that the box was working as agreed by him earlier.
After the Install was done, the billing amount was being finalised I instructed Mr.Rana to reimburse me the amount of the damage the installer had done to my door pane.He deducted a mere 250 from the total.Now I enquired about the part from maruti and they say its very difficult to source it from them and I’ll have to buy the whole assembly which contains a lot of unnecessary parts so it turns out to be more than the feeble 250 he deducted and the headache of procuring the part, talk about work ethics.
He also mentioned, that how his “high” value customers don’t even bother at such things, and how he paid 6k to a customer who’s car roof got burnt during an install and how he beard the loss of his installers mistake of poking a drilling machine through the cone of the sub of another customers which apparently costed him 9k(did anyone say workmanship?)
Here is the CLIMAX
After a week or so, I glanced upon the packaging of the Scosche Wiring kit which I had preserved. It mentioned a chart showing Maximum permissible current at full length to be 20 AMPS only!!
I faintly remember the Specs of the AMP saying 36A peak current so I figured that the AMP would definitely require more than 20AMPS at any given point of time.
Further reading led to a chart that mentions the conversion of AWG and MM.(
http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/diy-do...tml#post257692 (So.... why do we need those thick wires??))
I found that 6.5mm is equal to only 10AWG!!
So I’ve been using a 10AWG(6.5mm) kit all along and assumed that I was using 8AWG(10 mm).
All in all, I’m trying to EXTRACT more current than the specs mentioned on the back of the SCOSCHE KIT!
I felt fooled, still, I wanted to confirm these facts from a couple people I know, I went down to the JBL store in my neighbourhood as they are the principal importer for Scoshe also. This place was full of Audio Gurus who were professionally qualified.
After conversing with them they also convinced me, that it is not recommended to use a power wire beyond its stated specs on the back of the pack.
It’s common sense not to use a thing beyond its capability.
I agreed, as these guys were professionals, audio engineers, and the kind of setup they had of JBL products, they meant only one thing- serious audio
I then went to Mr.Rana armed with this info, who was quick to dismiss this fact, and told me that this power is suitable for my AMP and it runs fine and the fact that this is the only kit that was available within my budget for the power kit ~2k( JBL was within this bracket also)
I tried explaining him that thousands out there use “BOSS” wiring kit which is considered to be crap and the AMP still runs, point is, that you told me that this is 8 gauge and sold it to me where as the fact is that this is 10 gauge and maxes out at 20 AMPs which is pretty low for any 4 channel amp.
So you are in fact selling a product which is incapable of carrying such currents required by the amp and you call yourself a professional outfit.
He tries convincing me that 8 gauge is written on the box and I can see it for myself on the box. I tell him to show me and he flies off to find the 8 written on the pack but fails to do so as it’s not there, embarrassing.
A lot of discussion went on and after telling him that I have spoken to the JBL team in Delhi and they concur with me that it’s wrong to use a product beyond its stated capacity, and believe me it was very difficult to do this, I felt harassed and cursed myself of getting the install done here. A fellow BHPian ( blackfire_9) also was facing a similar dilemma.
After that, he tried talking to Mr.Gunbir and gave the phone to me to talk to him and I told him about the 20 AMP power limit mentioned and he agreed that it’s not sufficient for the AMP I have,after that Mr.Rana told me he shall get it changed to a JBL one next week.
I don’t like the “
chalta hai” attitude especially when I’ve paid a premium to get fooled.
I tell him I need it now, and he gives me all that jazz that the kit will come only next week and is not available in the market at all, or at least a genuine one.
I called up a place I knew was dealing in such products and they confirmed me the availability of it with them, I trust the place as they sell only with bill and warranty and no grey stuff at all.
I tell Mr. Rana to extract the Power kit from the setup and refund my money which was Rs.1900/- and then he starts making excuses that he has a car coming up for a setup and he cannot take out time for my job, this coming from a person, who told another customer to come while my and another friend of mine’s install was being done. Now I don’t demand exclusivity, but the fact that blackfire’s install was completed at
11.30 in the night because one of the installers was busy in the 3rd customer’s car speaks volumes about the outfit, and yes we told him 4 days in advance about our install.
After disagreeing that the power kit cannot be taken out, I told him that I’ll get the JBL kit arranged and his boys should at least remove their Scosche power kit and install the JBL to correct his judgement on the Scoche kit. To which he replies that I need to pay labour charges! I’m thinking, that this guy makes a technical mistake and he has the courage to tell me that I need to pay labour charges for his mistake!
That’s when I thought, there is no point in convincing him, and I should get the JBL kit installed myself and bear the installation cost from another shop. I then told Mr.Rana that I am ready to bear the cost of installation from another shop and told him that I’ll collect the refund in the evening. A fellow BHPian who had got the install done with me and bought the same kit as mine could not make it to the shop at this time and Mr.Rana talked to him on the phone and agreed to the refund of 1900 for the kit.
Meanwhile I went down to the other installer, who promptly quoted me installation cost of Rs.400
which pinched me as I’m bearing this cost due to the mistake of someone not technically sound.
I agreed , as I was at the limit of my patience and did not want to endure any further harassment from anyone, I had already incurred over a thousand rupees in running about fuel cost, millions of phone calls, and a big headache.
So I paid 2400/- for the install of the kit ,took the bill, and was off, in fact I was so impressed by the installers pace/quality that I tipped him as compared to the DRIVEN’s installer who damaged my door panel.
So we both (blackfire_9) and me got our kits extracted from the car by paying 400 per car as labour and I was off to DRIVEN to collect my money. It was little late, and I met Mr.Rana in the nick of time, but apparently cash was not available with him and he told me to come next morning.
I reached the next day along with Blackfire_9 and then Mr.Rana refused upfront to refund the money for Blackfires’ kit and agreed to only mine(?) ,I asked him the reason why ,and he refused he had agreed to refund the money for blackfires’ kit and agreed to only mine whereas only last night he had a chat with blackfire on the phone in front of me on the acceptance of the refund. And why would he refund the money of my kit only and not blackfires’? We had bought the same kit together and got it installed together and were facing the same technical issue.
Mr. Rana, defiant from the start towards facts which were well validated by now, didn't budge. His approach & attitude seemed more eager to stop the discussion rather than acknowledging the mistake & making efforts to rectify it. Finally, though, we did get the money, but we were left with a botched impression about driven & the kind of ethics & values followed.
ALL IN ALL, a horrifying experience and I estimate the total damage to be approximately 2000 after getting my setup done at DRIVEN which includes running about burning fuel unnecessarily ,numerous phone calls, installation charges paid for getting the JBL kit installed, the part damaged by the installer(power window console on the door panel)
And most importantly time, you go to such outfits to be assured of technically correct workmanship and instead I had to run about to get this sorted,
what better are they than the average lajpat nagar or karol bagh shops if they can’t tell what’s compatible with a wire that can carry a max of 20AMP current!!!!!
Now I’m sure the Mr.Rana or even their owners will not refund the Installation cost and other expenses mentioned above that I had to bear because of his mistake be it the power kit, excess loops of audison wire being tucked under the seat cover, the damage to the door panel and the headache, I don’t expect him to, but, even the slightest gesture matters, and shows that he cares about his customers, which clearly has been proven that he doesn’t.
There's no point going into the depths of this matter, & my sole intention is to bring this matter to light, so that people can be made aware & chances of such incidents happening again are minimized.
I will uploads the pics of the damage done to the door panel If need be.
It’s more of a “wham-bham-thank you mam, I’m sorry, do I know you?” kinda attitude.
Other things I noticed :-
>>They are not as professional as they seem to be on this forum, but this is purely my opinion.
>> They Sell 10AWG power kits by saying this is 8AWG and expect us to trust them on this simply because they deal in “high” value installs.
>>Highly Overrated.
>>They ARE NOT an AUTHORISED DEALER for JBL and Scosche PRODUCTS!!!
People buying JBL/Scosche products BE AWARE!!!
>>They did not include the Audison wiring and Scosche RCA in the BILL, so apparently I bought it without bill!!(And more importantly they escaped the VAT applicable on such goods it seems,correct me if I'm wrong)
This however is a trivial matter.
>>They measure the audison wiring being used by
estimation as a meter scale is not handy in their shop!!
DISCLAIMER: The contents in the above mentioned post are purely my opinion, and a personal experience.
17th September 2010, 08:29
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Thanks
