Agreed ... I do this kind of work on the side as well ... its risky (b/c you can break a panel and have to pay for it) ... but you get about $30/hour for it if you are efficient.

Zeph ... I can show you how to rip every panel out of this car ... and put it back together without rattles.

Lastly, you are getting totally ripped off on the installation...look elsewhere please, save yourself some worries and cash.

 

I've been pretty ballzy with the trunk, strut bar panels and center console.
I'm gonna have to ask for some advice once I start doing component installation in the doors.

 

How do you put the panels back together without rattles??

Thanks!

 

Don't break the mounting tabs like most installers do .... and when they do they just cram it back together anyways.

The car is fairly well built and won't rattle if everything it "clicked" in properly.

 

There are certain panels to beware when taking off (tabs and fasteners break easily). The two inner lower panels on both sides of the strut bar can be painful (they have two metal fasteners each) , as well as the large panels above and behind the rear speaker area hump. Most of the other panels are fairly easy to remove and replace. Place your hands as near as possible to the fastener before pulling, don't try to pry off a panel from the opposite end.

Too much Dynamat in the trunk can make it tough to get things back in/on too. I used 1/4" neoprene under many of the panels, which quieted rattles but conformed to the tight recesses instead of dampener.

 

Heh, don't I know it. The only really noticeable area is on the strut bar. We had extra deadener left over, so we did the entire strut bar. Now the plastic panels don't fit perfectly. They fit, and most people wouldn't ever notice, but if you own the car you see all the little details, like how the lines on two different panels don't line up just right after putting on the matting.

 

A local shop in my town called Lombard's Car Stereo did my install. Great place. The owner did most of the work on my car, and he used to be an IASCA judge. He was pretty darn **** about the install. Can't complain there. I bought the main electronics elsewhere (amps, sub, headunit, nav unit, big roll of Brown Bread) since they aren't authorized dealers for those brands, but the install job cost about $1300. It may sound expensive after hearing everyone on this thread say $1600 is a total rip-off. But this included all the labor and materials, such as the wood, paint for the stealth sub box and amp rack (professionally matched to Nissan Sunset LeMans by a local paint shop), some really expensive vinyl for the false floor which I thought was leather when I first saw it, etc. The custom work was really extensive. They started by stripping the entire interior out of the car (and I mean everything) from the doors back and lined the whole darn thing with Brown Bread. That was pretty scary when I first saw it all apart. The false floor, sub box, and amp are pretty extensive, too. The sub box volume was matched to eDesign's spec for this driver, which is nice. They also did my lcd screen in the cubby hole up front, as well as the nav brain install in one of the mail slots. Oh, they even installed the TR-7 trigger module to bypass the lcd screen's stupid safety measures. Oh, and we can't forget the PS2!

And throughout all this, per my request, they kept track of the weight of all the materials being put into install, and also kept as much of the weight as possible ahead of the strut bar so handling wouldn't be as affected.

 

Man that's a lot of work there and $1300 for labor and parts is not bad at all.
Do you have any install pics he gave you? Usually they have pics for their porfolio. The place i'm going to have so much pics to give customers ideas
on what he can do to any car. It is good to know someone you can trust
and know they do good work even if you have to pay a little more.

 

Ah man, don't get me started on the pictures. Yeah, we picked up a disposable camera to snap a ton of pics, but at some point the stupid camera disappeared and no one can find. I'm guessing it got tossed into one of the spare parts boxes and accidentally tossed... or is hidden under 6 feet of junk somewhere in a corner. Grrr...

 

Ahhh to bad man.....