forget the tb spacer. waste of money on these engines due to hollow plenum design.

 

simple solution. Buy any head unit over 99 bucks at bestbuyand best buy will install it same day for free you just have to buy the wire harness adapter, and mount kit, and a 5 dollar shop fee..... if anything goes wrong with in a year take it back to bestbuy they will fix it for you.... if you already have the unit just follow instructions above lol..... could never tell i work there could you...

 

Thats ironic, because I stopped in at bestbuy today and they gave me the whole pitch that if i bought one of the pioneers (above 99), I would stillhave to pay$50 for install + parts for install. He said estimate about $60 for parts ...haha and somethign about 5 dollars for zip ties and stuff to make it look professional. I almost started laughing for a moment, but held it in. He said to expect $110 + Headunit for the full install. I also visited circuit city which said what you said above. 50 for parts with free install. This makes it extremely difficult!!!!! Buy from crutchfield..., and end up paying someone to solder (im not into wire nuts or.. the crimp things so much) and install myself. or... get raped for two adapters and front plate, but get it put in for free..

Crutchfield $159 + soldering charge + shrink tube +my install = ......
or
Circuit City 179 (probably can pricematch) + 50 in parts + free install = 209 out the door

What 2 do...

 

I'm with PC. Its easer to just do it your self and then you know its done right. And if its not then you get to learn how to trouble shoot. I personally just solder it all together and then seal it all up with eletrical tape or shrink tubing. The hardest part is taking apart the dash to get to the wires the rest is all color coded.

 

my son bought a cd at best buy and got a free install + about $40 for the dash kit and wiring adapter. they weren't busy and they installed it within about 30 minutes. very easy and painless. i had no complaints.

other times my daughter bought one and then another time i bought one and both times they were extremely busy and they couldn't get to it for several hours or even the next day. so both times we just bought the dash kit and wiring and did it ourselves. these trucks are easy - dash just pops off, but be gentle and don't break it. plus - you learn stuff and its fun. if you don't have a solder iron you can buy a cheap one for $10. be sure and use a little flux and its easy. i don't bother with the solder - the straight crimp connectors are fine, but buy a cheap crimp tool or you can't get them tight enough to hold.

 

whoever you talked to at bestbuy was a fool lol cause every bestbuy does free install, there is a 5 dollar shop fee for the wire crimps.... but zipties? must have been the guys first day.... anywho, its really easy to install on these trucks i did mine in about 20 min just dont go haywire and yank the dash off

 

I wouldn't pay for the wiring harness and dash kit even if CC or Best Buy did install it for free if I bought it all from them. I've heard way too many horror stories about both of them. Plus if you do it yourself like said above you know it's done right. Another thing is that most likely if you get it installed at a place like that they will just crimp the wires together. I've done this before and not had a problem but I prefer solder. I've heard some installers from those places say they solder them but most people I've talked to have said they got crimped in and I know quite a few that haven't had good experiences. It really isn't a bad job to do yourself and no way it's worth $50. It's like a 20 minute job. If its your first time it might take a little longer.

Soldering really isn't all that hard. Just get some extra hookup wire and practice on it. Just let the soldering iron get hot and touch the solder to it and the wire and melt it together. Then tape it up or if you are going to use heat shrink tubing just slide that over and heat it up. Thats probably the best way to go although I use tape quite often.

You can get soldering irons pretty cheap at Sears or probably even Wal-Mart or somewhere like that.

The other nice thing is it's a good learning experience and these trucks are really easy to do it on so it's a good vehicle to learn on.

 

I only ran RCA's from the headunit back to the amp but I didn't have a problem with space. I used a set of Street Wires RCA's and got the fished through the dash pretty easily then just pulled them tight and hid them with zip ties. There is only one spot you can see if you look under the dash. It wasn't a bad job at all and I didn't think it was too tight in there. I think I ran the wires up from the floor instead of down but I don't remember for sure. Where are you having problems with the space? Maybe I just got lucky idk for sure or maybe they changed them or something. I really don't know. If you are having problems at the glove box it is sometimes easier to just take that out to run the wires behind it. I don't remember if I did that on this truck or got them hidden without taking it out. I know on my Honda I took the glove box off and hid the wires behind it. I also had a cd changer installed several years earlier before I knew what I was doing and the wires kept falling down so I ran those behind the glove box and zip tied them all up there while I had it off.

 

overall install of my head unit, amp, and subs was roughly 2 1/2hrs. ran my wires from the dash down and it was hard aas hell to get a hand far enough back to drop the wires.and then once they were to the floor it was tough fishing them through the part of the dash thats directly under the cup holders. just have a hard time getting situated on the floor to look up into the dash, (6'2' 130) so i had to do everything by feel as opposed to beiong able to look at the same time...

 

Oh ok. I do remember now I had to take the cup holders out. I'd forgotten all about that until you said something. For a simple h/u install you don't have to do anything like that though.