Stereo & Electronics - Newbie Installation Mistakes

Lets here your car audio related mistakes that you made?

I have made several but Ill start out with this one...

Running the power wire and the patch cord wires side by side causing interference/noise.

Now I run the power wire on the drivers side and the patch cords on the passengers side.

RCA's can be ran with the power if it is a Sub RCA.


I used 8ga on a 500 and a 250 amp :(

And many bad grounds

But I have been a MECP first class installer for 3years now and can say I have NEVER broken a car Never. And wiring issues do come up every here and there but nothing damaging or unfixable.

I haven't had any problems with stereo stuff, but I did make a big mistake installing a quadbeam light kit on my truck. I had the kit on my 97 Suburban before, and the lighting system was the standard old one, where both wires are dead until the switch is flipped, then one goes live. It's not the same on the new trucks, which I found out the hard way when I went to install the kit on my new Silverado. I did not realize that when the headlight system is on and low beams are selected, the high beam wires are both +12V, and vice versa. Anyway, after installing the kit the same as I had it on the old truck, I hit the switch and nothing happened for a sec, then lots of smoke coming from everywhere. I killed the lights and started yanking wires and fuses to keep my truck from lighting up. When all was said and done, I had blown a bunch of fuses and fried the front lighting wiring harness. Luckily, since my truck was only about 2 months old at the time, I took it into the dealer and told them I didn't know what happened. They replaced the harness under warranty, and I saw that there was a note in there that they had found a spot where the harness was rubbing against the corner of something. Phew....saved me about $600.

i once had a brand new amplifier that had the screwdriver-dial for the crossover settings. before hooking up any wires i started to set the xover, but instead of turning it the right way, i turned it the wrong way (you can't really tell with those things, but i did wonder why it was giving me so much resistance...) and that broke the potentiometer (or whatever they call those things). needless to say, the amp would turn on/off/on/off/on/off every .5 seconds... so i pretty much broke it :)

other than that, i ran subwoofers with a lot of boost or with the gain too high and clipped the signal pretty bad before. bad grounds is another common one.

it takes a pretty long time to really learn car audio the right way :)

I've gotta good one...

Installing a pair of 12" woofers in buddy's car, after making him a custom box. I don't even remember what kind they were, but mucho $$$. Well, I was trying to save time (and my forearm) so used the drill with the phillips attachment, and needless to say when the bit slipped I punctured a hole straight through one of the woofers! haha, worst thing was he watched me do it! He couldn't be mad though, since it was a free install for him :devil: Last time using a drill though, now it's all hand-screwed :bang:

Blew my dual 15's using shitty amps. And doing trying to fix a cylinder head leak on a ford. When its dead its dead. Got a LS1 out of it though.

In my last car, a ford probe, I didn't tie down the sub box. Even though it was incredibly heavy, in a 'snow-covered-parking-lot-manuever' the whole sub-box did a flip and poked a hole in the surround the size of a quarter.

Another mistake I did was using house wire I ripped out of a lamp power cord to power my amp... I was 16, whaddya expect.

Also, I can't count how many times I've had to replace terminal connectors that rip off, no matter how perfectly I crimped them. I use now a Memphis 1000D and 250AB setup that have hex connectors, so no terminal clip is required; the wire just stuffs in the amp and you clamp it down inside.

Also, don't cheap out and splice in pre-amp hookups. I did this in my old honda, and when I turned off my radio, it created a closed-loop of feedback and made my subs humm LOUDLY. Spend the cash and get a radio w/ pre-amp outputs.

Finally, don't be a n00b and just buy subs and run the high's/mid's off of the radio. The best money you'll ever spend on a sound system is buying an amp for your highs. Not only will you have a low THD rating, but it will just rock.

I've gotta good one...

Installing a pair of 12" woofers in buddy's car, after making him a custom box. I don't even remember what kind they were, but mucho $$$. Well, I was trying to save time (and my forearm) so used the drill with the phillips attachment, and needless to say when the bit slipped I punctured a hole straight through one of the woofers! haha, worst thing was he watched me do it! He couldn't be mad though, since it was a free install for him :devil: Last time using a drill though, now it's all hand-screwed :bang:

Oh man. I did that once and only the one time. Yea I also Pre-drill and Hand screw now. Just not worth the rush.

Also try to keep from doing this again I punched a Phillips bit into my left Pink. I still have a bowtie scar. The Drill slipped and spun off the screw and caught my hand and I basically slamed it down on it. Should have gotten Stiches.

Expanit foam is REALLY sticky. Don't get it on you.

I'll think of more.

I always make my hand in the form of a C and completely cover the surround on the sub. I would much rather stab my hand then the sub. Like Richie said, I also predrill, use a screw driver, and just take my time.


Great thread. Keep it going :cheers:

i got a good, bone-headed mistake...

just last weekend i was rockin out to my new system, when i went to roll up the window it got caught on something, made an awefull popping sound and the mid stopped working... i knew it the moment it happened, that little white hook on the bottom of the glass somehow got caught on my mids speaker wire. i was hoping it just unhooked my speaker wires connector to the mid, but instead it tore the friggin wires out of the voice coil... pretty costly and pretty stupid mistake considering i knew the wires were a little too long but figured it wouldnt hurt anything.

so... MAKE SURE your speaker wires inside the doors are routed away from any window mechanism.

also, i almost burned my pinky off when putting on a positive battery terminal years ago. i accidentally grounded my gf's high school ring to the chassis with the wrench while the wrench was on the positive terminal. it didnt take long at all for that damn ring to heat up and burn the living shit out of my finger. so, when working on any power-related stuff be sure to remove all your rings cause it hurts to almost burn off your fingers...

i got a good, bone-headed mistake...

just last weekend i was rockin out to my new system, when i went to roll up the window it got caught on something, made an awefull popping sound and the mid stopped working... i knew it the moment it happened, that little white hook on the bottom of the glass somehow got caught on my mids speaker wire. i was hoping it just unhooked my speaker wires connector to the mid, but instead it tore the friggin wires out of the voice coil... pretty costly and pretty stupid mistake considering i knew the wires were a little too long but figured it wouldnt hurt anything.

so... MAKE SURE your speaker wires inside the doors are routed away from any window mechanism.

also, i almost burned my pinky off when putting on a positive battery terminal years ago. i accidentally grounded my gf's high school ring to the chassis with the wrench while the wrench was on the positive terminal. it didnt take long at all for that damn ring to heat up and burn the living shit out of my finger. so, when working on any power-related stuff be sure to remove all your rings cause it hurts to almost burn off your fingers...'

I learned a long time ago when working on Aircraft in the Navy to take all jewelry off. They used to show us all sorts of gory films to scare us. It worked. One of the guys from the video who had caught his ring on something while sliding down the aircraft worked in the hanger next to my squadron. Finger looked good as new but you should have seen the before pics. It pulled the bone and whole finger right of his knuckle.

I think the stupidest thing I've done with a car stereo is strip a hot wire with my teeth. It just so happened I was grounded to the car. I never realized 12 volts could make you jump that much. lol

Not a newbie, but a "what was I thinking" mistake.
Wasn't paying attention while wiring a DVC sub and of course, made 0 ohms. Popped a $700 amp :bang:

Phone conversation next day:
Shop: What is wrong with the amp?
Me: I don't know... It never turned on. :devil:

When I used to install professionally- I was removing the positive battery terminal in a Astro van with a 10mm ratchet, and as I turned the wrench, a ring on my hand made contact with the hard brake lines coming out of the master cylinder. Normally this is not a problem, It really IS a problem when the positive battery terminal is electrically connected to the wrench which is touching my ring which then gets grounded on the brake line, and welds open a hole in it with accompaioning sparks, as brake fluid comes spewing out, as my ring gets real hot real fast. Moral of the story: remove the negative battery terminal first!

Some cars have a wiring loom that runs along side the trans tunnel. Do not, under any circumstances, try to screw a cell-phone mount to the trans hump of these vehicles. The wiring loom, when shorted, is a bitch to fix. The passenger seat had to come outta that car to get the carpet back far enough.

Also, do not bang on the glass to test your new shock sensor for the alarm - windshields are expensive!

Oh yeah, and don't lean against the vehicle if you're sweating and holding a 4AWG cable that's connected to 12V. You *will* feel it.

Got my whole system installed and sounding great. One day, hit a bump and I get really bad feedback. Spent hours trying to figure out where a bad ground was or where a wire got pinched etc. Quite by mistake I pushed to hard on the deck on day and the sound went away. Long story short... pulled the deck out and I had left one of the RCAs on the back of the HU only partially on.

Check and double check those connetions boys and girls!

Here's a good one...

I was wrenching the positive battery terminal and while doing so the other end of the wrench touched the negative battery terminal.

Didn't do any damage, but the sparks just about made me shit my drawers. :lol:

Didn't do any damage, but the sparks just about made me shit my drawers. :lol:

:werd: that sounds about right!

Let me just say, disconnect the battery before you do ANYTHING . . . . unless you like welding. :jest: