Andy's CD player broke in his truck today and needs to be replaced. We have a 13 hour drive to and from Colorado in a week and a half (probably much longer than that since I'm prego and will have to stop a LOT along the way) so we wanted to get a new cd player/radio for his truck before we leave for vacation.
We first went to Car Toys tonight to look at them and they tried to sell us on the whole touch screen with navigation, ipod hookup, usb plug, XM... the works. Well they had the price of the thing listed, but when Andy asked for a final price with installation and everything, $800 somehow turned into $2100! WOW! How deceiving! They have a sale price, but it more than doubles the cost to install it and to buy all the extra stuff you need to make it actually work! We are absoluely NOT paying that kind of money for something that's just fun and totally not necessary. The kid trying to sell it to us of coarse was very young and said, "Well, it's a really cool thing to have and show off to your friends." Andy and I couldn't help but laugh at that because we are SO not into "living up to the Jones" and buying things just for status or for show.
So we went to Best Buy. We looked at the same radio/navigation system which was for the same price as Car Toys but we wanted to see if the installation would be cheaper there. The guy said it would be $100 for installation and $16 for something else. Sounds great, right? Well the more Andy asked about it, that installation didn't include all the stuff to actually make it work! What good is it to buy a radio with all those frills if it doesn't even work! So then Andy was asking about more details about the thing... in particular, the bluetooth connection so it can automatically connect to your phone and you can talk on your phone through a mic in your car and never even have to touch your actual phone. Pretty cool, right? Well the Best Buy salesman said they don't have the parts you need to install to make the bluetooth work. If we buy it on our own, they can install it, but they don't even cary the product in any Best Buy store. Now, keep in mind that they have the bluetooth capability listed as one of the selling features of the radio but they don't tell you that they don't sell the product that actually makes it work! Craziness!
Andy asked him how or where he could buy it. The salesman didn't know and said he couldn't even tell Andy what the part was called or anything. He had no clue how to help us know where or what to buy to use the bluletooth.
Then Andy asked for a total without the bluetooth connection, "What will I pay when I walk out the door with it if I choose to buy it?" The Best Buy guy's response...."Well, I can't give you a quote because when our installation guy gets in there he usually finds other parts and things you will need to get to make it all work and that will increase the cost." So what he's saying is that you buy a radio for $800 with a $116 installation fee (what he originally said before we asked all the questions.) But when they tear your dashboard all apart to install it, they put other stuff in there and when they finish, your $916 now all of a sudden costs you $1500! Now that they've already torn your dashboard apart and installed it all and you can't really back out and say, "Oh, no. I don't want to spend THAT much on it."
So by this point, I can't help but to just laugh at how rediculous this whole thing is. We go over to look at ipods and told the girl working there about what just happened, kind of laughing about the whole rediculous thing. And she says, "Well, I don't know about that suff, but I'll do my best to help you with the ipods." As soon as we start looking at them her 1st question is, "Will you want to download DVDs to watch on it?" We think about it and tell her, sure, maybe. It's not something we had really thought about but if we can do that, maybe we will. Her response... "Well if you want to do that you have to buy a DVD converter and we don't sell that. I don't know where you can get them. They're kind of a black market thing, but if you can find one, then you can download DVDs to watch." ARE YOU KIDDING ME? WHAT IS UP WITH BEST BUY!
In the end, I think he's not even going to buy a new radio/cd player at all. He got the ipod so I think he's just going to get the adapter so he can put his cds on the ipod then plug the ipod into the radio to listen to them.
And we thought buying a new radio and cd player for the truck would be a very simple outing. Maybe 30 minutes to pick one out, then get it installed and he would have it in his truck tonight. What were we thinking!
No comments:
Post a Comment