:banghead: I recently got a 2004 Honda Civic Coupe VP so everything is manual. When I bought the car the dealer tried to sell me an alarm that was already installed for $1400! I said hell no. I got a keyless entry system with a starter immobilizer and an actuator at PepBoys. The guy there told me that I could install it myself. That was after I clearly stated to him that I was an idiot. He said it didn’t matter and I could do it anyway. I took the drivers side door panel off and discovered that it already had an actuator installed. I took off the bottom dash and there are a bunch of wires with female adaptors that aren’t attached to anything. The directions that came with the kit say that I have to determine my door lock type but they have no option for aftermarket actuators. Even if I figured that out the rest of the instructions are too difficult for my feeble mind to make sense of. ‘Do it yourself’ my ass!
I told him that I was an idiot!
PLEASE HELP!
:banghead:

ok, your shopping at PepBoys permit has been revoked! return that hunk of junk that will probably break in a month and bring your car to an automotive electrical shop (a stereo shop).

Damn! OK I'm truly convinced now...NO MORE PEPBOYS! I opened the damn thing and the package is impossible to close. That sucks. Hopefully I've learned my lesson.
I've been pondering the issue of body modification and have concluded that I'm going to stick to your first suggestion with the 16" rims and lowering. I'll have to call the bastards at Honda to see what this will do to my warranty. However I do need body side molding and bumper protectors because the constant scratch and dings are putting me in a bad mood and that makes my boss unhappy. I can get OEM side molding from Honda or get aftermarket side molding. The bumper guards will have to be aftermarket. Since up untill this point I was STILL considering getting wheels and bumper guards at PepBoys I realize that my judgement is completely useless and I must run my dicisions by you or someone else who knows what the hell there talking about. Do you have any advise on where to get the body and bumper guards?
There are some drug dealers who hang out at the coner store on my block who have NICE cars with nice wheels. I asked one of them where he got them and he gave me the name of a place basically in the hood. He told me to ask for a specific guy and tell him that (his name) sent me. He said that he would hook me up with a good deal. I don't know either one of them. Should I go there or pick a place in the phone book?

I have another question about interior. I had a bad experience ordering a dash kit on ebay which I shipped back. I'm considering ordering another one from a diffrent company. I've read alot of threads on painting the interior that have mixed results. Should I try painting or try another dash kit? (NOT from PepBoys!)

no dash kit and nompaint... and find a local custom shop for your wheels... as for side moldings... go honda... and for bumper guards.. hmm... ask homda.. sometimes they have them and can paint them tp mathc your car.

Thanks. I'll get started on that.

Alright...I'm so sorry to keep hassling you but I just can't help myself. I just have to ask..Why no dash kit or painting? I'm sorry but I'm really stuck on that one.

Dash kits will end up fading or peeling, and paint will discolor, and if its shiny then it could reflect light into your eyes which is a pretty serious hazard

yeah and it looks corny lol

well, i agree, but i use the thought, they sell enough, so its gotta look good to someone, so unless you ask for my opinion on how it looks, i usually (keyword) keep my mouth shut

lol

Thanks SO much for your responses. That plays a HUGE factor in my decision-making.
About the keyless entry, I took the trim panel off and couldn't find an actuator on that side. The panel is still off and the panel covering the fuse box is also dismantled, which I've left thinking that this will be less work for them giving me a better price

I went to a couple of places I got out of the phone book. One guy said that he would install my kit for $75 plus the actuator I already have in the passengers side door. He was located in a strip of other auto shops. It didn’t look terribly ‘reputable’ to me, but I’m not sure what that means when dealing with car shops. The rest of the places I went to were the same but nobody could give me a quote because the electrical guy was out to lunch, or some other excuse. On my way back home I spotted a custom radio and alarm shop that actually had a store and good customer service. (continued below, it won’t post more than this)

I felt much more comfortable there and I suspect it would fit in the ‘reputable’ category. I got a guy to view my car and showed him the keyless entry that I got from PepBoys. He said that he could put it in but there would be no warranty. I asked him if it was a piece of shit and he said yes. He said he can install one of there's which was a keyless entry with an alarm for $250. I asked him how much it would be to install the actuator that I already had in the passengers’ side door and told me it would bring the price down to $200. In my mind, an actuator is an actuator whether it's from PepBoys or OEM. Am I wrong? I asked him how much it would cost to install a power window on the passengers side and he said $250. Are these fair prices?

I also went to a shop that seemed ‘reputable’ which sold wheels and explained that I wanted to upgrade to 16”. He told me that he didn’t have any 16”. They started at 17”. I asked him where I could find a place with 16” and he said I would have a hard time finding a custom shop that carries them. He suggested I go to E-Bay. I don’t think E-bay would result in a preferable outcome but I’ve been to a bunch of on-line shops that carry them. Do you think I should order them online or keep trying custom shops?

In my mind, an actuator is an actuator whether it's from PepBoys or OEM.

Umm... well... wrong.. think of it like the big chinese recalls lately... imagine that pepboys stuff is like buying chinese and buying OEM is buying well.. directly from honda.. who would you trust more? as for the wheel, most shops wont carry 16'' because they arent popular and wont sell as easy. Most shops can get them if you order them and that is what i suggest because if you order online and get them, then you need to order tires as well and find a place to mount and balance them.

yea dont buy that chinese stuff its crap im pretty sure we've all had our exp trying to cut corners and save $$

Damn I'm an idiot. I'll have to pay him $50 to install his actuater. How do I know if his actuator isn't just more Chinese crap? Do you think his price of $250 is resonable?

As far as the wheels go, I guess from what your saying is that if you buy from a shop they give you tires and mount & balance them? Do you have a choice of tires? Do they hike up the price? From my reasearch on tires I think that Dunlops are the best. What are all these 'Toyo' and other names that I've never heard of?

i think falken is a really good tire i used to have em just make sure you know what your doing and do ur research and youll be alright dont go to little half fast shops because they r out to make a buck try best buy and get a black widow alarm they support the door lock actuator setup and they offer a warranty too.. as far as dunlop never tried them but toyo is good to depends on what you plan to do with them drive or race.. crappy tires for racing and falkens for driving just make sur you dont have alignment problems and always rotate them on time

falkens are overkill for you i think, they are for more "spirited" drivers and have a stickier compound and shorter treadlife. I have Toyo's and i love them for everyday driving, decently priced and its a very well rounded tire. usually if you get a package they will cut you a break on price versus if you brought them everything and asked them to mount and balance.

and from my own experiance, dont go to best buy or anywhere like that, yes they may be a bit cheaper but as soon as the warrenty runs out, they stuff tends to crap out. they dont usually solder thier connections and use cheapo crimps to splice wires together, whereas a stereo shop usually will back up their work forever and yes, you may pay a bit more, but would you rather pay a little more now and be good, or pay less and have some electrical tape come undone and have a short which could cause a fire and then youre out a whole car...?

My philosphy is to go to a mom and pop shop because they cant afford to be sued if anything happens, where as a big franchise could care less if they need to replace 1 of every XXXX amount of cars if they die out.

Hmm…that’s a lot to think about. My problem is that I do so much research on Consumer Report and Edmunds and any more of the various ‘Guide to buying tires’ & ‘Tire ratings’ that I can find until the point where there’s information overload and I can’t make a decision. The same happens with wheels, bumper guards, body kits, etc…

As far as tires go, I feel no urge to race as sport and I’m usually not in a huge hurry to get anywhere so maybe I’ll try the Toyo’s and say to hell with Consumer Report. Tread life is very important to me, as I’m a cheap bastard, so those will probably do just fine. I’m not to ‘spirited’, people who encounter me either think what in the hell is wrong with her or simply write me off as eccentric. I’m usually not materialistic but I’m obsessive & compulsive and right now my focus is my car. It’s difficult to make a rational decision when you’re a compulsive idiot who, despite massive research, knows nothing about cars, hence the Pepboys/Kragen/Autozone shopping sprees. Thank god for this site!

I checked out Best Buys website and they had only Viper models for keyless entry/alarms. Some were a lot lower than the $250 this other guy is offering. I still can’t figure out if he’s reputable. I defiantly saw no mom’s or pop’s in his store but it wasn’t a franchise. I went to the website but when I clicked on the product button I saw no products. His site is www.extremeautosound.com. I don’t know what to make of it.

As far as tires go, dont go too cheap or youll comprimise handling.. especially in the rain.. Viper is a good company, but again, i dont know about the quality of install best buy is going to get you.. If you want, buy a best buy alarm and then go talk to one of the techs.. find out how much Best Buy would charge and then offer that amount to the tech to do it on the side, that way he pockets all the money instead of the $9/hr... and will be more likely to do a quality job

Won't that void the warrenty? I had a guy do that for my stereo at circuit city and he freaked out when I pulled out my wallet in front of the security cameras. It worked out fine and I saved $10.00. Best Buy seems like a bigger store and that would be harder for a tech to pull off because other techs would be working on cars at the same time.

My car got gouged again so I ordered Honda OEM side molding and a silver finisher on-line. I hope I didn't screw up again as that only saved me about $25 in contrast to going straight to the dealership. Probably another dumb move on my part.

well. if it matches and looks ok, then good move on your part. and as far as the tech goes, dont have him do it there, bring it to his place and pay him there, that way, no one else knows

I went to Best Buys and the guy there was a complete ass. Besides his personality falling dreadfully low of pleasent, he said that the total install would be in the $400 to $500 range because my car was fully manual. I told him that there was already one working accuater in the drivers side door and he said that there was a chance that they couldn't use it because it was aftermarket. I went back to the custom shop and the one they wanted to install for $250 was a Carbine. Is that one step up from Pepboys and one step below Viper?

I also went to a custom wheel shop. They could order 16". The problem is that there's so few to choose from in this range. He told me that I'd get a better price online and all I had to do was go to any tire shop to get tires and have them mounted. He was trying to encourage me into going to 17". He told me if I went to 18" then it would look lowered because of the low profile tires. I don't think that those tires are going to last that long. I have 14" stocks right now and was going to go to 16". How much would going to 17" affect my car and my warranty?

Another option:
I work for a Limo Co. and talked to my boss about getting keyless entry. She called a guy who does work for us. He will install a 'Barreta' alarm with keyless entry for $190. He will give me a lifetime warranty for $260.00. What do you think? Have you heard of Barreta?

$260 with a lifetime warrenty cant really go wrong.... if it breaks your not paying for a new one...

As far as tires... any size bigger than stock MAY affect your warrenty... if you ever have a problem, just put your fatory wheels back on and they wont know.. the bigger the rim, the smaller the profile tire you need to use so your speedo and odometer dont get screwed up, and with a smaller profile tire comes a stiffer sidewall which means a little stiffer ride. i have 17's on my car and the tires are like rubber bands and i dont mind