Stay away from this store for Remote Start/Alarm installation

Stay away from this place is you have a 2nd generation or newer Toyota Tacoma.


So this has been my experience with Stereo King in Clackamas, Oregon. I own a 2011 Toyota Tacoma and they have butchered the install of a Viper 5706 remote start/alarm system from day one. At the time of install I told the sales guy that the 2011 Tacoma has an issue with the auto headlights, which I had done prior research online about on TW and elsewhere, I email this info to the sales guy and told him to give it to the installer. This is not really an issue and much as it is knowing about how to do the work around and make it shut off the headlights. Lone behold I get my truck back and the headlights won’t shut off if the remote start times out(as it does on its own after running for 15 min) or if I shut the remote start off myself. This means that the headlights would stay on indefinitely and drain the battery. I take it back in… and hour later the installer come out and says he fixed it but proceeds to tell me that my dome light no longer works when I open my door. I leave and go home, seems like you need a dome more than you think with the kids and wife trying to get in at night time. I also come to find out when the truck is armed my door ajar light continuously stays on, that looks great to anyone who want to break in. Back to Stereo King, he takes out the work he has done and now I’m back to having a dome light but having the potential of a dead battery. He says it can’t be done as he has tried everything. I take the truck to Best Buy in Clackamas, they can figure it out and get it close, but that just cost me $50.00, they also inform me that Stereo King skimped out on the way they did the install and instead of using diodes for every door as your supposed to and as is instructed in the installation manual, they only ran one wire to the dome light for the door trigger rather than doing every door as it should be done. They pay their installers on commissions, so the quicker the installer can get the vehicle in and out the quicker he or she can move onto the next vehicle making money. No incentive to take the time to get it done right, just quickly so they get more money. Back to Stereo King, no offer of reimbursement of my cost to Best Buy, we’ll have our guy look at it I’m told.
The original installer comes and we start discussing the issue and they proceed to inform me of how I should have been charged extra to have the headlight issue rectified, because it now needs a relay. Can you say commission???
“So it can be fixed and you knew all along” I think to myself. I tell the manager that I emailed the issue and the fix to the sales guy at the time of install, the installer says he didn’t get that info until he was done installing the remote start. Awesome job guys I think to myself; I have been lied to the entire time now… The manager says they are going to fix it for free. Great I think. Get the truck back after an hour, everything works great, or so I think…
Now the remote start, when it’s triggered to go on, unlocks the doors during the remote start, leaving my car susceptible to getting broken into, well not broken into as they can just open the door. The remote start won’t start all the time now, it’ll start and be running and THEN it will try and KEEP starting while the truck is running, potentially burning up the starter. Good thing I caught that one while close to the truck. It also will start the truck, the truck will run for 10 seconds, then it will shut itself off and proceed to re-start and fail. I have no confidence in the alarm/remote start install that they have done on my $30,000 vehicle.
While they have been nice somewhat, I walk in today and say to one of the; what I can assume is one of the senior guys that work there, I say “you guys must be sick of me coming in here with all these issues” to what he replies “probably”… what now he asks? I say it doesn’t work and proceeds to cut me off, he just says the installer that did my truck won’t be in until Saturday, bring it back in then. So here I am without a remote start and a system I don’t trust to not fail due to install sometime in the future.

Back down I go this Saturday to deal with their bullshit.

 

wow that seriously sucks, sounds like a lawsuit should be filled if the truck gets fucked up any further

 

Think I'm going to ask for my money back and go somewhere else, I'll update on Saturday.

 

Whoooooly sheet. Sorry to hear man. That sounds like a load of crap, get you in and out as fast as possible usually never means quality. Good luck. Oh and I will never go there. Thanks for the heads up. Maybe try automotive outfitters on foster road just east of 82nd. It's right behind the Shell station. I have gone there a few times for different jobs and they've been consistently good.

 

I am a MECP installer and had to figure these things out when I first installed my Viper remote start and security system on my 2010 Tacoma. There are a few things that need to be done to have the auto headlights shut off. The simple way is to take the green/white wire which is the factory alarm rearm wire off the viper unit and hook it to the door trigger. Also you need your parking lights to be set to a positive trigger and have them hooked up at the dash fuse box which is in a white 13 pin plug pin 10 and is a green wire. Make sure they test it. This will get your parking lights to flash when you lock and unlock your truck. The parking lights will not flash if the truck is remote started because the headlight switch is on and will not flash the parking lights. This annoyed me so I isolated my headlights and parking lights at the switch with 2 relays and had to pulse the second ignition after the car was shut down and then pulse the door trigger after that to make the parking lights flash all the time. But that is a little more in depth for just a normal install.

Hope this helps!

 

Thanks for the info cy.hill.

I am going to ask them for my money back this morning Beavis0076...

As long as I can let a bunch of people know about these guys and the fact that they do shoddy work the happier I'll be.

 

They put a stereo in a truck of mine back in '96. Messed the whole thing up. My alarm would go off randomly when driving down the street. Try explaining that to the cops. Never went back.

 

Just bought a new (my first) Tacoma 3 weeks ago. I emailed Stereo King in Portland last night about a remote start system. So thanks for the heads up. That is not to imply that all of their stores or installers are the same, but the way they have (not) handled your situation suggests it is not an isolated event and reasoning to go elsewhere.

 

I never did write back what the final resolution was.

After I sent the manager the above email he agreed to give me back my money. He said he was more than willing to work with me though and being the nice guy I gave them one more chance. They took the entire thing out and I know they did I marked the old parts and checked when they were done.
The install manager did the install and of course everything works just fine now, the was its supposed to, it should have just started that way from the beginning without all the fuss and deception from the other staff. The manager was a great guy to work with, I should have been dealing with him the whole time during this ordeal rather than the other employees working there. While I had a bad experience in the beginning at the end they made things right and stood behind their install.
The tacomas are finicky with the auto headlight issue but with the proper amount of research on the installers and truck owners side, it can be done. Search around here and get the relay mod and description of the issue, print it out and take it into wherever you get your install. Funny thing is, now I would recommend them to you, only because NOW, they really have a lot of experience trouble shooting and getting it correctly done, Albeit I was the Guinee pig.

 

Thanks, I appreciate the info. Semi-unfortunately I decided to go ahead and get a lift instead of waiting until I burned up my stock tires like I told myself I was going to do, so remote start might have to wait until next fall.