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FIBs. F'ing Illinois Bastards. You guys can't drive. lol.

LOL, you can't say that about me cuz I was born and raised in Tucson,AZ. I've been in IL for about 5 yr's. So I sill consider myself a ZONA man.

And I've never had to fix a bad install like that. It's always been a friend did this, and I just had to correct it.

I

v'e seen power wires run over the fender and down through the door rather than going through the firewall.

I don't blame them, that fire wall can be a sumbitch to get through. lol

The firewall might be a pain at times, but nothing bothers me more than seeing a fire red 10 awg (cause that's all the bigger you need after all, right? lol) runing through the drivers door. I hate that. I don't like to have any wires what so ever visible when I'm done with a car. None.

When I was installing in Sierra Vista, Arizona, I had a guy who was an installer at one of the local shops tell me, "The bigger the wire, the more resistance ... 10 awg is as big as you'd ever want to go."

I'm not even kidding. Of course their amp of choice was Mobile Authority so 10 awg was probably plenty for anything they were doing. Blau, Mobile Authority and Excaliber. That's all I remember them selling. I'm sure they had more, but that's what comes to mind. Another shop pimped JL, Clarion and Code Alarms, another was all about Lanzar Opti gear, another sold Boss like there was no tomorrow and the last one was just what ever they could get cheap and resell. I have to admit, as much as I didn't like being in AZ, I had a lot of fun down there.

Yes I love AZ, I try to spend as much time as I can on my free time. How long did you say in zona?

The bigger the wire, the more resistance ... 10 awg is as big as you'd ever want to go."

I'm sure I would have done the samething you probably did. Laugh and walk away. lol

I loved talking to the the other shops. It was hillarious to hear the things they would say.

I lived in AZ from about 94-97.

What brands did you carry. I remeber you sayin what you guys sold, but I can't remeber off hand.

Well, when I started out there I worked under the table for the buy who pimped Boss. He paid good so what the hell, I need money.

When he did anything more than an alarm-in-a-can, he had an outside guy come over to do it. me and that guy ended up becoming friends. that's who I learned alarms from. After a while he and I decided to try business for ourselves.

We talked to another shop in town who really didn't do so much business. the guy who sold what ever he could get cheap. His store front was mostly his lock smith business but we worked a deal with him. We got one side of the store to do pretty much anything we wanted, he footed the bill for everything and we took a portion of the profits.

We brought in Kicker, Autotek, Phoenix Gold, Denon and Viper. We also brought in a line that was new at that time and I don't think I've seen anything of it lately. I can't remember the name but the amps were white and I think had green lettering. They wern't anything nice, but it was good competition for the other crap being sold around town and it gave us an entire line we could fill the shelves with that at least gave a good appearance.

I left shortly after that and headed back to Michigan. I went to work for Sound North. Primarly I was the install guy. Mostly remote starts in the winter and so-so systems in the summer. We sold JVC, Eclipse, Pioneer, Phoenix Gold, Coustic and Viper. When I wasn't installing, I helped the tech do repairs and/or I'd go out and do home theater installs.

that's my story. lol. I'm sure way more than you wanted to know.

its late and i'm up because i work overnight and i'm off, so i'ma talk . . . lol . . . that is like my biggest dream right now to own my own shop. or even work at one. but do to a certain background that i have i can't pass a background check therefore i can't work at mobile one. the local shop said he would give me a change being an installer, but never called me, so now i work with my dad overnight and can't just quit on him . . so in a way i screwed myself by not just goin to the guy and asking him what is up with my job.

When I get out of Iraq, I'm going to start on a new business. Just doing installs for now since I still move around a lot. Once I retire in about 10 years, I plan to move back to Michigan and open a shop there.

I plan to build a website to highlight installs. The good ones anyway. I'm going to kick it off with my own vehicle. I'm going to document the majority of my own build when I get home. I'm working on a buisness name and business cards to advertise myself. Window stickers, t-shirts and all that jazz. For the most part I'm going to target military guys around the DC area. I just figured it would be an easier audience. I'll hit up what ever local shows I can also.

I'm sure it's going to take a lot more time than I'd like for it to take, but I need to start somewhere. And if I can build up a nice portfolio of installs on the website over the next ten years, when I head back to Michigan, It should be pretty easy to steal the business of all the loosers up there. They are all back yard installs there. It's terrible.

Not the lower part, I'm talking about the U.P. :)

I don't want to offend you Michigan guys.

here in slidell they have 2 shops, mobile one and t.o.s. (thunder of slidell) . . mobile one carries: jl, ma, rf, sony, pionner, kenwood, bazooka, lightning audio, and alpine, i think thats it. t.o.s. carries: kicker, memphis, american pro, blaupunkt, pioneer, and ppi. mobile one has the bigger rep because of being mobile one ofcourse. t.o.s. has been known to sell you things that most (novices) people won't think of questioning. for instance i bought my first system from them, 2 kicker comp cvrs and a kicker 800.2 amp. the subs were dual 4 ohm and after i paid for them and get them installed they told me that they weren't compatable with each other due to the ohm loads and i had to pay extra to get them to reinstall dual 2 ohm. ever since i learned otherwise (about 6 months later) i went back and bitched and complained and advise everyone i knew to never go there again.

That's too bad. Why people have to do bad business like that I just don't get. And yet, they stay in business which means they're making money. And if people like that can make money ... I know I can make money. Damn Iceholes. lol. Well, you know better now anyway. Besides, you have eveyone here to help you out too.