On the bright side, they didn't rifle thru his glove box looking for porn.

Wow.........wow. Just wow. I hope this gets sorted out for the guy. I'm sure he needs a $12,000 headache like another hole in his head.

Um, I highly, highly doubt that it would cost $12K to repair the car. That is clearly an inflated estimate. New windows? New gauges? New cup holders? That list of parts is very suspicious. CC owes you some repairs, but that is just ridiculous.

For that much money you can nearly buy yourself an entirely new Civic.

It's $2500 in labor alone.

@Jaysyn:

& that's @ $50 an hour for labor.

Circuit City installers are not MECP installers

He makes it sound like the car was ready to explode, when in reality it was just some wire splicing to make connectors compatible. In the worst case the fuses would pop, but it's hardly something that would go up in flames.

As for the rest of the "workmanship", it's Circuit City, what did he expect? Who brings a brand new car there anyway?

@schwnj:

The estimate sheet cites substantial damage to interior plastic panels - anything that would be ripped off to access wiring or climbed over/sat on while working could have been scratched or broken. That would explain the cup holders.

The windshield being scratched and chipped is understandable, if they were fiddling around in the dashboard, the windscreen could get nicked by tools and parts.

The gauges were probably damaged as a result of the dashboard being carelessly demolished around them.

What it really amounts to, is this guy is going to almost have his whole car rebuilt. It needs an all new interior, climate control, and electrical system- and the electrical system is the most important, complex, and expensive part of any modern car. $12,000 is probably about right, the car's essentially totaled.

Not like you can go to an independent garage either for a cheaper price. That sort of total rewiring of the entire car really would need to be done by a specialist at the dealer. A 1979 Civic could be rewired in the driveway over 1 or 2 weekends, but an '07 Civic is going to be difficult.

I'm glad to see the wave of kindness and not blaming the customer has come to a close. The customer obviously deserved this, and in fact a Honda Civic is a poor choice of cars. I'm sure the color is bad too.

Get real guys, he took his car back to the dealership. He didn't inflate the estimate, if it is inflated at all.

Also, if the fuses blew if they wired the car incorrectly, what's stopping them from just testing it out and putting in stronger fuses, making it the fire hazard mentioned. I wouldn't put it past them with that kind of damage.

@Frostberg: The problem is, people that take their cars to Circuit City for an install usually aren't smart enough even know what MECP is. Ignorance is expensive!

Speaking from experience, Stealerships are quick to talk trash about aftermarket accessories causing problems with their cars. It looks like the wiring is very messy, but it'd take a bit more inspection to say if it is indeed a fire hazard.

The best way to do these installs is to use harnesses to avoid modifying any factory wiring. In cases where that is not possible, wires are to be spliced inline, WITHOUT cutting the original wire. Some wires don't like that and split, but if they're reconnected securely its definitely not a fire hazard.

I'll definitely be looking at the forum post on this one.

You have to realize that if you use too thin a guage a wire then the wire becomes the fuse not the fuse itself. This is very important and is one of the main reasons why car fires start.

He doesnt deserve any of this and should actually look into taking CC to court instead of relying on their way of handling it. Plus, Taking them to court make sure to file locally so that any CC suits have to come to your town for the hearings. They might not even show and forfiet the case altogether.

Personally, I would not let BB or CC or anyone like that screw with my shit. In fact, I dont even buy from them. They are all whacked in the head as far as Im concerned.

Adding to my other comment, its VERY easy to scratch or damage panels if you're not careful or don't know how to take the car apart, especially with newer civics. I also second the idea that if the morons replaced fuses with larger one its a catastrophe waiting to happen...

I'll also third the MECP comments - its a great program, even though experience is just as important

@MustyBuckets: beautiful sarcasm, thank you : )

@MustyBuckets: I'm frankly in awe of your first paragraph. Just wanted you to know that...

@aaron8301: Installing a navigation system is NOT complicated. It's just more hassle for someone who never did it. (Same as painting walls, you can do that with instructions, but it's quicker to hire someone to do it.)

To be able to screw a simple install like this? I would never guessed that someone is capable of such idiocy. As long as the person could read, I wouldn't worry about McDonald's teen installing my navigation system.

Where Circuit City hired the guy who screw up like this?

(Stop blaming the consumer, i would never suspect that you could ruin a car by doing navigation install, you just have to follow step by step instructions, nothing genius.)

Would love to see a pic of the work order/contract used between OP and CC. But yes, clearly shoddy work regardless of the total cost of damages or liability owed.

@coffee177: I know where you're coming from on not wanting anyone from a big box store messing with your car... I was the same way until I became one of them. To be honest I've seen just as many terrible installs from large retailers as from the small specialty shops. I've also seen beautiful installs from both. I do know that I'd trust any of the guys in my shop to work on my car.

I looked up the price for a Honda civic SI sedan and it is from 20-24K This car is almost a complete loss because of some wiring and dash board problems? And 51 hours of labor? holy smokes last time I checked it only takes about 16 hours to build a car.

-Beware of circuit city
-Beware of modern cars
-Beware of dealerships

@blueboxer: You realize, of course, that the excellent advice you give in your second paragraph is precisely what CC didn't do, and was responsible for this mess? Chain-sawed thru a wire harness, shorted together other wiring, cut a hole thru a heating box and more berserker rage-induced damage?
Wow. Just wow.

If it is seriously possible to inadvertantly do $12,000 of electrical damage to a car, there is something very, very wrong with automotive design in general. Back to the drawing board, Honda. Your cars in the 1990s rocked, but WTF is up with this?

@timmus: WTF is up with this is that cars are now equipped with a lot more electronics than they once were. If Honda were to drop that stuff, they'd lose customers to other carmakers that still met customer demand. And some of that stuff is now government-mandated (tire pressure monitoring) or will be in the near future (stability/skid control) and is being installed in anticipation of those requirements.

I've got to agree that it while it does look like Circuit City screwed up, I believe that the dealership is taking advantage and trying to inflate the repair cost too.

Something tells me that this is going to get worse before it gets better.

@timmus: by any chance, does your current car need a crank to start it?

@inspiron: We're talking apples and oranges here. When they build the car at the factory they are wiring an open frame. The cables you see come built and ready to be hooked up and run through frame. The 16-hours it takes to build a car doesn't include the time it takes to build the harnesses. The 51-hours of labour will include rebuilding the harnesses, and possibly disassembling sections of the body to rerun the harnesses.

Looking at the shoddy work on those cables, I'd flag it a fire hazard as well.

@timmus:

It isn't just electrical wiring as the dashboard and other parts were cut up in order to force the installation. It mentions it in the video.

Knowing what kind of people some CC stores hire, I'm not surprised at such a shoddy job.

Late-model Civics aren't really meant to be torn apart and messed with. It's difficult even to switch out the factory stereo. With most other cars, you can just buy a head unit off the shelf and get a dash kit for it, but the Civic's radio is so proprietary that doesn't work. CC never should have been mucking around with it.

@schwnj:
Why is it absurd? It's the dealer's listing of everything that was damaged or altered from the botched install. If it is suspicious to you, oh well. The dealer's estimate is all that matters in a situation like this. They won't attempt to repair anything, they will replace it all back to the condition it was in. Circuit city should have told them they cannot perform the install. But rather than turning down a sale, they took his money and destroyed his car. It's absurd to think that they cut the factory wiring. Surely, their own policies should ban that. A wiring harness should ALWAYS be used. They ruined his cars wiring because they weren't willing to order a 2 dollar plug on a $3,000 job. And to cut the dash up? Just crazy. I am surprised they just didn't beat a dent in the back of the radio to make it fit.

@tmccartney: I don't really keep up with the car culture, so this is really surprising to me. Weren't Civics pretty popular with the tuner crowd in the 90s, precisely because they were structurally simple and easy to customize?

Yeah. That's what you get for going to North Shore Honda. Everybody knows that every dealership in the Glen Cove area absolutely blows repair prices out of sane proportions. I took my 88' Range Rover to Glen Cove Land Rover and every time they quoted me over $3000 more than the actual repair cost quoted from Land Rover of Smithtown.

Try taking the car to Huntington or Babylon Honda and see what they say.

Still, Circuit City should be paying for any damages their retarded techs caused.

Wow this just sucks. EECB Circuit City and start looking up lawyers.

Autos on an assembly line take about 2 hours from start to finish. That is with mostly all snap together, bolt on here and there parts. Also remember that a car fully assembled is cheaper that the sum of its parts. Where I work we do the complete IP (Instrument Panel) assembly for GM, and from bare dashboard to fully functional, snap in place dashboard, takes about 30 minutes. The IP's we assemble are for Escalades, Suburbans and Tahoes. There really is only about 40 parts to each dash. Mind you this is American vehicles, not foreign, as there are more electronics in foreign vehicles.

Repairing something after the fact on a car is ALWAYS more expensive. I don't doubt CC did an enormous amount of damage, but also going to the dealership will always add about 35%-45% to the actual total in parts alone, not too mention the inflated labor charges.

Regardless, I would go back the dealership for a job of this magnitude to get OEM parts and more experience and not to an independent, yet more than likely, cheaper, mechanic.

The dealer estimate doesn't seem out of line. Dealership work is expensive. Looking at what they are saying they have to do to the vehicle, I can see someone working on that thing for most of a week. They are rewiring the car and rebuilding the dash.

I would let any of these big box places touch my car.

Reading this comment thread, I've come to the conclusion that if I want GPS installed in a car, it's going to happen one of two ways:
1) Factory installed by the car manufacturer
2) With a suction cup to the windshield and a wire running from the cigarette lighter - not as elegant as a CC install, I'm sure, but infinitely less scary

@scoobydoo:
Lots of people bring their cars to Circuit City/Best Buy, etc...other stores. Anyone that KNOWS what's going on knows you avoid them; but 98% of consumers don't. And they sure do advertise their services so it's reasonable to expect them not to render a car undriveable after an installation. IMO: It's not the car owners fault that this happened so it shouldn't be turned around on him.

That looks like a preliminary estimate only, based on the first inspection. I would expect a more official document to be typewritten, itemized, and signed by somebody other than "ERIK." Before I start screaming about $12,000, I'd want the final estimate that's been reviewed and signed by the service manager and/or district rep.

However, that being said, it wouldn't surprise me a bit that it would at least cost thousands of dollars (at least $5K or more) to put the car back to normal. If the installer cut into wiring harnesses and/or damaged all the computer control modules for the climate control, gauges, air bags, and everything else..yeah, it'll probably cost that much. They're going to have to at least completely disassemble ever part of the dashboard (and the underneath as well) to replace the damaged harnesses. If some of the electronic control modules are damaged, that could be another few thousand bucks right there.

Even if the car isn't a blatant fire hazard, how'd you like to be screaming down the highway at 65 MPH with a car full of passengers and have your air-bags go off?

I've taken apart car interiors and dashboards, and it's a royal time-intensive pain in the butt just to get some of the basic panels out, so I don't think the time estimate is out of line. Sounds like lawyer-time.

@Buran: And don't forget vibrating cup holders--they require advanced electrical wiring too.

@schwnj: They owe him some sort of compensation regardless. That's some shoddy work if I've ever seen it.

The guys that work at CC and Best Buy aren't generally car savvy, at least not to the point that they should be.

However this is quite amazing, in the end, if CC is guilty of the damage, the law is on the consumer's side.

The repair cost seems high, but they generally are at car dealerships.

[www.dealerrater.com]

No idea if this website is one to trust but they gave that dealership a really low rating 1.9 on a scale of 1 to 5. Perhaps try taking it in someplace else and getting another estimate? Oddly enough it was the second hit when I typed in "North Shore Honda"

Regardless though Circuit City should be paying for any damage they caused good luck on getting it taken care of.

Did you know there is an inherent flaw in the design of all Boeing 747 wiring due to poor quality insulation the results in the plane blowing up?

TWA Flight 800 is one of 4 or 5 known explosions caused by this issue. Did the airlines fix it? nope it's to expensive, right now they are trying to limit partially filled planes idling to long on runways to create fumes which will cause the explosion shortly after take off.

The cost is so high, that it is actually cheaper to replace the planes than repair the million miles of electrical wire at the cost of a couple hundred million dollars. This is why there is a lot of focus on the new 787 and airbus a380. They are going to replace the entire fleet in 10-20 years but they expect 5-10 more 747s to explode.

Now you understand how bad wiring can be???

If I were the owner, I'd contact my auto insurance carrier. It would be covered under the comprehensive coverage. At least in my state, most likely the insurance company would have the car repaired and collect the damages from Circuit City - in court if they have to. It won't be small claims court either.

Since it's new Civic, Circuit City can't claim any of the damage was pre-existing, eliminating one way they could weasel out of paying the whole cost.

Now to fix the car properly, they will likely have to pull the dash, replace the wiring harnesses, interior panels, windows if scratched or chipped. Don't forget that Honda parts are extremely expensive.

I once made the mistake of having Circuit City install four new speakers in a 1992 Corolla (installation came free when I bought the speakers from them, so I figured what the heck). The asshole "technician" left my fog lights disconnected and I later found the fog light wires neatly coiled and taped under the dash. The dummy probably took them out and then didn't know what to do with them, do he just put them back and hoped I wouldn't notice -- which I didn't until I tried to use them a week later.