Jump to content
SAU Community

Recommended Posts

Just looking for your honest thoughts.

I'm seeing red right now so if i am over-reacting tell me; and any experiences from you may have had also would help.

Just paid a well respected audio installer in Dandenong $1100 to do some work on my 34.

He hasn't loomed up and secured the cables properly behind the head unit because i can HEAR THEM RATTLING ALL THE TIME

and most importantly hes scratched the f**k out of ALL AROUND the centre console. Theres bright white scratches; actual chunks taken out of it where the plastic's been bashed... jeez. This morning it was perfect; because i've been pedantic about looking after my baby... leave it for 7 hours with this guy and hes done more damage than in 11 years since the car was made.

I saw it in the garage before the job was finished and i see how it has happened; he had dumped everything with wires still attatched in the passenger footwell and of course it was scraping all up the side without a rag or anything protecting it.

I made a point of saying this when i picked up the car a couple of hours ago. Said "these scrapes weren't here this morning. They've happened here" and he kind of shrugged it off.

Before i go back there and maybe look like an idiot; advice; ideas, experience please gentlemen... thank you.

I appreciate that you used the money to get it done professionally but to be honest I would have done a better job for a tenth of the price. That's just unacceptable I would take this to consumer rights. Try fix the scratches and deep cuts with a bit of interior filler with matching colour. The professional probably had no experience because removing the headunits cage the bottom is sharp and the cage is heavy so most beginners will rest it on the side unknowingly scraping away the edges, an 'experienced' person would have put cloth to cover the sharp jagged edges at the bottom of the cage and had less of the rough work. Well that's how I would have done anyway.

Edited by Grey

I would not fix the scratches, instead I would make him pay for the costs to have it repaired by a professional or replace the parts with new or as new as possible parts. It is classified as "duty of care", where, while he had possession of the vehicle, it is his duty to care for it and be responsible for any damaged that may occur to it for the duration he has the vehicle. If you fix the damage yourself and then said him the bill, you will not have much luck getting your money back. Take high resolution photos of all scratches fisrtly, then try to resolve the matter with the installer, he has the right to assess the damage and get it fixed for you, at his expense first. If he believes he is not responsible, then I would contact consumer affairs or the Dept of Fair Trading and take the matter further. You are the customer so you have your rights to dispute this matter further and the interests are in your favour.

sad to hear this in the industry, skyline dash parts on the R34 scratch easy as hell and can't be fixed properly without replacing or recovering the dash. I've inquired from everyone in OZ and USA to fix mine properly and due to the construction of the dash material it doesn't look right once a dodgy fix up is done. the installer should have used many towels and taped them up to protect the dash. the razor sharp corners of the cage holding the radio and the way the wires unplug makes it really hard to not lay the cage sideways to get to all the plugs, even more so on the cars with sat/nav/tv . lots more annoying plugs

but the installer should make effort to sort the dash to your happiness. or replace it under his biz insurance. .. ?? or consumer affairs complaint if you can document it ?

sourcing one without scratches is going to be hard. doubt nissan still makes them.and most cars in oz get scratched from compliancing muppets who put in the FM band expander. mine was perfect on arrival, then it went for compliancing, they" threw" in a band expander for free but chewed up the dash in the process . didn't ask for one but got it anyhow. grrrrrrrr

its a tough battle to win, without prior photos of your dash ?

just be glad its not a wood trim off a rolls royce in burlwood, crack that clear coat or trim and your farked , the hand matched wood cost more then a r34 to replace ?

you can do a dodgy fix to improve the looks of the scratch depending on how bad or deep it is. but still looks like dogs balls in the sunlight.

the grain of the dash is hard to find as well, so matching it is a bugger. found some close but not perfect.

just remember accidents do happen, so let them try to make you happy before going off the deep end and making this worse

if you pm me the shop name I might be able to help if I know them, don't slander anyone on SAU

Thanks. Its wise to get some perspective before going in guns blazing..

The dealer can't dispute his installer did the damage; because i went in the workshop and saw the guts draped on the side of the vinyl.

I have a feeling His angle will be that i'm perhaps overreacting over a few marks But as we discussed thats not the point; there is a duty of care; and through being rushed for time cos they didn't start work on it early enough; the bloke did not take care. What also burns is I know they took more care when they did my fathers car; one of those v8 holden thingies. (cynasism intended)

Anyway yes.. i will stop ranting here and put it where it counts. I wasn't able to talk to him today because he wasn't in; but i'll have a civilised talk and hope we can work something out.

Regarding professionals that can fix this nightmare for me... know any in vic?

  • 3 weeks later...

Sorted. Just thought i'd briefly explain what happened.

After the manager of the shop found out i wasn't happy with the final result he made every effort to get the car booked back in immediately; and did everything i asked him to change

free of charge.

One of the things that happened; they sold me an alpine head unit (they are a alpine specialist) that i wasn't happy with because it was terrible at playing through the usb socket.

the manager went out of his way to give me a full refund for it (even though it had been scratched a little bit) and installed the pioneer unit i picked out instead. They also tidied up

their wiring looms inside the console on my request and adjusted the sound settings for me and gave me a quick lesson on how to do so.

And they did all of this in less than two hours. End result; quite happy with the setup i've got now; and i'll be going back there for future work.

The lesson for myself and other 34 owners is however; that dash is extremely difficult to play with without getting a few bumps and scratches on it. If you are a pedantic shit like me

that doesn't want to see any marks; might be better off doing it yourself if you can.

In my case; i've found a gentleman that will come around and fix my interior for me. Perhaps i'll post up some pics once i get it sorted.

Thanks for your support. It gave me the confidence to go in there and make my case.

cheers

alex

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now


  • Similar Content

  • Latest Posts

    • Also, I logged some data from the ECU for each session (mostly oil pressures and various temps, but also speed, revs etc, can't believe I forgot accelerator position). The Ecutek data loads nicely to datazap, I got good data from sessions 2, 3 and 4: https://datazap.me/u/duncanhandleyhgeconsultingcomau/250813-wakefield-session-2?log=0&data=7 https://datazap.me/u/duncanhandleyhgeconsultingcomau/250813-wakefield-session-3?log=0&data=6 https://datazap.me/u/duncanhandleyhgeconsultingcomau/250813-wakefield-session-4?log=0&data=6 Each session is cut into 3 files but loaded together, you can change between them in the top left. As the test sessions are mostly about the car, not me, I basically start by checking the oil pressure (good, or at least consistent all day). These have an electrically controlled oil pump which targets 25psi(!) at low load and 50 at high. I'm running a much thicker oil than recommended by nissan (they said 0w20, I'm running 10w40) so its a little higher. The main thing is that it doesn't drop too far, eg in the long left hand fish hook, or under brakes so I know I'm not getting oil surge. Good start. Then Oil and Coolant temp, plus intercooler and intake temps, like this: Keeping in mind ambient was about 5o at session 2, I'd say the oil temp is good. The coolant temp as OK but a big worry for hot days (it was getting to 110 back in Feb when it was 35o) so I need to keep addressing that. The water to air intercooler is working totally backwards where we get 5o air in the intake, squish/warm it in the turbos (unknown temp) then run it through the intercoolers which are say 65o max in this case, then the result is 20o air into the engine......the day was too atypical to draw a conclusion on that I think, in the united states of freedom they do a lot of upsizing the intercooler and heat exchanger cores to get those temps down but they were OK this time. The other interesting (but not concerning) part for me was the turbo speed vs boost graph: I circled an example from the main straight. With the tune boost peaks at around 18psi but it deliberately drops to about 14psi at redline because the turbos are tiny - they choke at high revs and just create more heat than power if you run them hard all the way. But you can also see the turbo speed at the same time; it raises from about 180,000rpm to 210,000rpm which the boost falls....imagine the turbine speed if they held 18psi to redline. The wastegates are electrically controlled so there is a heap of logic about boost target, actual boost, delta etc etc but it all seems to work well
    • hahah when youtube subscribers are faster than my updates here. Yes some vid from the day is up, here:  Note that as with all track day videos it is boring watching after the bloopers at the start.  The off was a genuine surprise to me, I've literally done a thousand laps around the place and I've never had instability there; basically it rolled into oversteer, slipped, gripped and spat me out. On the way off I mowed down one of the instructor's cones and it sat there all day looking at me with accusing cone eyes as I drove past. 1:13:20 was my fastest lap, and it was in the second session, 3rd lap.  It (or me!) got slower throughout the day as it got hotter.      
    • It sounds like you want what the Toyota Landcruisers have for their roof racks. Wanna know what you end up with? Rust holes in the roof, and water everywhere...
    • Discovered today that if I select reverse first and take my foot off the brake, then select drive, the drive indicator light works and so does the tiptronic gear indicator. 
    • Ok so after much research and talking with knowledgeable people I've got my turbo conversion done and it's all running great other than 1 small issue.  Car has remained auto with the na auto and tcm, I've used a stagea ecu with. NIstune board and everything is great other than my gear selection on the dash. It illuminates park, reverse, neutral, 3rd and 2nd. But nothing drive or what gear your in when you pop it into tiptronic.  I'm sure there is maybe 1 wire in the ecu plug I need to move to rectify this. Does anyone here have any ideas?   Cheers guys
×
×
  • Create New...