Stereo System Gone Kerblooey

Stereo System Gone Kerblooey (AKA PriVenting)

Hey gang, long time no etc. She's baaaack!! With an ongoing saga of woe...

I would say "to make a long story short, " but I'm not gonna.

Once upon a time in the west (i. e., Lost Angeles, about 10 days ago), I had my 06 Pkg 3 detailed. A day or so later, I started having problems with the sound system. On all inputs (radio, cd & aux), there was intermittent electronic screeching and static with the sound of what I wanted to listen to suppressed. As time went by, the screeching etc became less intermittent and virtually constant. Of course, I assumed it was something done by the detailers. I Yelped my way around LA. One stereo place told me the amp was under the rear deck (somewhere in the vicinity of the hybrid battery) and I should come back after the weekend so he could take the car apart and tell me what was what. (A bit of research later revealed to me that diagnosing the amp from the back of the car would be like doing a root canal through the rectum. For the record, this upstanding citizen is employed by Al & Ed's in either Culver City or Marina Del Rey--the border between the two is right near them.) A service writer @ a local dealership had a tech come and listen. The tech said yeah, something's wrong, make an appointment and we'll charge you $120 to look at it. (During all of this, I'm keeping the detailers in the loop just in case it is them... and they're telling me the JBL amp is under one of the front seats, along with the satnav gear, so they couldn't possibly have damaged anything--this they know because they looked at an 05... did I mention I have an 06 Pkg 3, with a Garmin on the dash and an aftermarket satellite receiver, which I watched being installed under the rear seats, and the only JBL with which my car has ever been associated is Jew Blows Light--and before anyone gets offended, I am the Jew in question... )

I finally realized I should call my VERY trusted mechanic (Jonathan at Modesti's in Culver City, in case anyone is interested--not cheap, but VERY honest), who I didn't think of at first, a) because I need them so rarely, and b) they're not stereo guys. But, it finally occurred to me, they would KNOW a stereo guy because some people who get their cars fixed actually have stereos in them, right? So Jonathan sends me to Sergio of Prodigy Sounds in Culver City. This man should be sainted is all I can say (about him; I still have plenty more to say about the rest of this mishegas)! Saturday afternoon, I go see Sergio. He sits in the car and plays around with the balance and fader, with my speakers and with one of his own through the front passenger side hookup behind the mirror. At first, it seemed to be happening only on the right side, but it really was both sides. He made two phone calls, to his tech--apparently, the Spanish for "screeching noise" is "screeching noise"--& to a Prius guy. Well, it turns out that the base model stereo in my car does not HAVE a separate amp; it is an integral part of the radio unit. Who knew? So Sergio unsnaps my dash like it's Legos and pulls out the radio. (Did you know that when the radio isn't connected, the MFD doesn't actually do anything and the A/C is also disabled, and the big red triangle with the exclamation point lights up? I didn't.) Anyway, after all of this, there is absolutely no indication of any moisture anywhere on or in the vicinity of the unit.

It's now like 10pm Saturday night. Given I have no life, I have nothing better to do than think about my car. A lightbulb goes on inside what one might consider to be my brain. I HAVE A VIRGIN AND SERIOUSLY OVERPRICED PLATINUM VEHICLE SERVICE AGREEMENT THAT HAS 1.5 YEARS/30K MILES LEFT!!! THAT (allegedly) COVERS THE STEREO COMPONENTS!!! I call Sergio and, very apologetically (sp?), ask him, may I please have my radio back? No problem... He says he'll be @ his shop tomorrow (that's Sunday, for those of you still awake and keeping track), and I can come pick it up. When I get there, I ask him to reinstall it... A) so I don't do it any further damage while transporting it, and B) Ya never know, it MIGHT have been a wonky connection (it wasn't). For all of this, he charged me $40.

Anybody still there?

Next step: finding a dealership to do the job..

Miller Toyota in Culver City were the ones who told me it'd be $120 just to look (and I have never heard anything good about them, plus I called them a while back for some black touchup paint, which they said was a special order, and they never called me back). I have been to Marina Del Rey Toyota on several occasions and can't think of a single good thing to say about them. I found Hollywood Toyota on Yelp and clicked through to online appointments. I explained the problem (in MUCH less detail than here). It's been about 2 days and no response. I'm guessing I lost them at "Platinum Service Agreement, " which, I assume, is where I also lost Santa Monica Toyota. In their case, I got bumped around from department to department before reaching the voice mail of a service writer who has not returned my call. Extending my Googling geographically, I arrived at Manhattan Beach Toyota. I got to speak with a real live person to whom I succinctly, if you can believe it, described the problem as I perceive it, including the words "Platinum Service Agreement, " and I'm taking it in tomorrow.

Is there a question here, I hear you ask? Nope. But where the hell else can I vent about things Prius? I have missed y'all, honest! After Rufaro went to the big doggy park (hmmm... the word predictor on my Droid thought the word after doggy should have been style...), some of you may recall I came here to seek assistance in naming his then 9-week-old successor. Well, Teddy will be 2 years old in about a week. About time I checked in, eh?

Regardless whether or not anyone has followed along this far, I'll keep you posted!

And, because maybe I can, I'll attach pix of Teddy. (One from about December 2009 and the other from sometime this past spring. You can see in the earlier one how he finally got his name. And maybe someone can remind me how to rotate pix. )

 

... Except he was more cinnamon then, and now he's faded to a light apricot... OMG, we sound like we're naming lipsticks!!!

 

To make this part of the long story shortish...

There was a six-hour tug-of-war...3 hours into the ordeal, I am told it's fixed, not covered under Service Plan, that'll be $110, thank you very much for your business.

I get in the car, with the tech standing by me, I do Saint Sergio's trick of checking each speaker with balance & fade. Guess what? Not fixed. Oops. Tech crawls back in and starts re-dismantling my car, service writer cancels the credit card charge.

Three more hours later, yes it IS covered, and we'll call you when the part comes in.

Why do professionals NEVER believe you? One of my feet was badly fractured several years ago and I have had several surgeries on it. It looks like a jigsaw puzzle that's been badly put together in x-rays, and the bones are pretty fragile, so it fractures easily. Something breaks. I call the orthopedic surgery department @ Kaiser. They say go to ER or a general clinic, depending on the time of day. I do as instructed. The generalists x-ray my foot. The radiologist's eyes go crossed and I am told I have to go to Ortho Surgery...There goes yet another 6+ hours of my life because I am not the right kind of professional, so how could I POSSIBLY know the answer?

:deadhorse::violin::noidea::yell::argue::glare::frusty::clock::faint:

(Select one from column A...)

 

I know! It's kinda scary innit? AND I feel disloyal to the shade of Rufaro since I'm having so much fun with Teddy.

Final stereo update (unless it blows up again in the near future): Can you say "RACKET?"

The amount the dealership is charging the warranty people is $184.55, broken down thusly: Labour (hey, what can I do? The spell checker stuck in the u): ***$29.70****, Parts (a speaker): $142.39, and tax: a coupla bucks.

Their labor (hey, no u this time) charge to customers is $110/hour. I know they don't charge actual time, but rather some mythical number that bean counters make up, but I also know, not counting the tech's four actual hours on Wednesday, today it took him 2 hours to redissamble the relevant bits of the Pri, take out and restore the bad channel wiring/speaker and rereassemble. $29. 70 labor??? You KNOW I would have been charged at least 2 "units", say $200. Based on this information, I think it safe to say that the parts charge was the dealer's actual cost, without the markup I would have been hit with.

It's good to be king...

 

In about 15 minutes (PDT), Teddy turns TWO! :second: I can hardly believe it! Are we all singing?