EDIT: I recently went to another shop to upgrade my amp. They told me that whoever installed my system did a very poor job and used crappy materials. I had them pull it all out and replace everything. The "good" wiring that Adolfo said they'd use turned out to be 8 gauge instead of 4, and made of aluminum instead of copper. The high to low converters and bass knob was also shitty. I had everything replaced. Do yourself a favor and do not get anything installed at Force. Also, the speakers I got retail for $120 from the manufacturer. Force Electronics sold it to me for $250, stating that the price includes installation and wiring. I would not even buy anything there for that reason.
I really wanted to like this place as I like to give my business to small business owners, but unfortunately, I can't say that I had the best experience here. The place is pretty ghetto, the area a bit sketchy, but I wanted to believe that they were good people trying to make an honest living.
The one good part about shopping here is that I came in after having visited a different shop where they quoted me way more than force electronics did. Javier informed me of what I did and did not need. I ended up saving more than half of what I would have paid at the other shop. However, I'm now finding that maybe I should have spent more money for better quality installation.
What I bought was a front component speaker set and needed them to install an amp and two subs that I already owned. They installed everything in about three hours, excluding the subs because I didn't have them with me. It was agreed that I would come back the next night for them to finish. They put a sub in there just to test it out and I thought it sounded okay, but upon leaving, I noticed that the sound was coming mostly from the back, so I tried to use the balance feature to move it more towards the front and realized there was very little sound coming from the front besides some sound from the tweeters (which, by the way, they drilled holes into the panels by my side view mirrors to put the tweeters on without asking me. It's a brand new car, and I would think that they would let me know if they were going to mess with the way it looks. My car has two areas in the dash for tweeters. I can only assume this was the lazy mans way of installing them). Aside from that, left to right actually controlled front to back, etc. it was all out of whack. Before even exiting the parking lot, I turned around to see if he could adjust it. But he had already left for the night.
I came back the very next morning where Adolfo was very nice and said that they would take a look at it along with hooking up my subs. Another gentleman helped me, but didn't seem very happy about it. I told him there was very little sound coming out of the front speakers, so he turned the volume all the way up and said that it was producing sound. I explained to him that I understood that, but the back was producing way more sound. He was cursing under his breath about how the other technicians do things differently and wrong and he ends up having to fix it. It turned out that something they installed was faulty, and he had to do a bunch more wiring. Once he had it fixed, he gave me a look to see if I approved. I said, "much better, yes?" and he agreed. I knew I wasn't crazy.
The last thing to do was to install my subs. He turned the bass all the way up, including on the bass knob, yet there was not too much sound coming from the subs. I asked if he could make some adjustments but he said that's all the sound they would make. He then asked me where I bought my amp, insinuating that I got a dud. I said it's a Phoenix gold octane R. It's a good amp and produced plenty of sound for me in my old vehicle. Then he told me my subs are probably weak. I told him they are Image Dynamics, and to my knowledge they are good subs. He said there was nothing else he could do so I left unsatisfied and wondering where I could take my car to have the system adjusted as I'd lost faith that they cared very much about their work.
I ended up messing with some of the knobs and buttons on the amp and now have tons of bass. It left me wondering if they knew what they were doing and were hoping I'd want to buy a new amp and subs, since Adolfo was pushing for me to get other gear. Don't get me wrong though. He was not overly pushy about it.
My overall impression is that they will give you a good deal, but it seems like they just want to take your money, get the work done really quick without paying much attention to the quality of their work. I chalk this up to a lesson learned. Next time I'll put out more money for better quality work. read more