Creative Audio — Local services in Joplin

I normally would prefer to leave positive reviews because people sometimes have bad days and shouldn’t necessarily be penalized for them, BUT, after more than one bad experience with Creative, I felt it was time they heard about it!! First, while I was sitting waiting for my car speakers to be installed, the employees had multiple inappropriate conversations while another lady and I were waiting within earshot. I have been in customer service for decades and it bothered me that they were so careless. I kept waiting and waiting until I decided to go get some sunshine and my car was parked in front, ready. How long was I wasting my time and no one could be bothered to walk a couple of feet to tell me? I did not complain. My husband is a stickler for our sound and complained to me repeatedly that it didn’t sound right. Finally about a month later, we had it checked out by another installation service and the speakers weren’t even correctly installed. They were just sliding around in our dash for all of that time… ???? What exactly did I pay them for again?!! Still we had more problems, decided to give them one more shot. Had them install a second battery in the back to support our subs. Again, I waited, in store, for it to be finished. Again, I was going outside for some fresh air, and AGAIN, it was parked outside, finished and no one told me. I noticed it was a few minutes past the hour, and they charged me for TWO hours of labor. It was only ONE HOUR if they had TOLD ME IT WAS FINISHED WHEN THEY FINISHED IT!! PADDING THE HOURS OF LABOR IS THEFT!! But, I didn’t say anything, I just wanted my experience with them to be OVER. Just a couple of days later, I was on a drive and the WHOLE SYSTEM SHUT DOWN!! Went back to the secondary installation place and had it checked… Creative neglected to put in a secondary fuse with the battery they installed and the power MELTED MY PRIMARY FUSE RENDERING MY SYSTEM USELESS UNTIL I COULD GET IT INTO ANOTHER APPOINTMENT TO FIX IT!! Do these guys even have a CLUE what they’re doing? The manager wasn’t in store when I went to complain and didn’t even try to contact us until my husband resorted to calling corporate. When he did contact us, he tried to push everything off on the secondary installation place, took NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE DAMAGE THEY DID TO OUR CAR OR THE HOURS AND HOURS OF AGGRAVATION THEY PUT ME THROUGH. Horribly disappointed and energetically recommend anyone reading to go to anywhere but Creative Car Audio!!! Miserable EXPERIENCES for me and my car!!! If I could give them less than one star, I...

This is long, but worth reading! My ordeal with Creative started in August. I bought Kicker speakers and a JBL basspro hub sub. They scheduled me for August 21st. Dropped my car off that morning. I was on my way there to pick my car up around 540pm for them to tell me that they “blew my factory amp” and put all my speakers back to factory and they have to order me a new amp and schedule me for Sep 7th. When I got home I checked all my boxes of speakers and they hadn’t even opened them. Seems like a fishy story. Anyways, take my car back on the 7th. Drop it off. They call me a couple times with a problem here and there and asked to keep it over night. I said sure. Go to pick it up the next afternoon. They have everything installed. Sounds pretty good besides phone calls were now only coming from 1 speaker. Oh and they dented my dash in one spot. I call them and tell them about the phone calls coming from 1 speaker. Then later I noticed my chime noises for backup detection were so high pitched they were ear piercing. Well 4 days later the sub stops working. I run by and they inform me it was running with the gain too high and it’s ruined (I didn’t even touch the thing). So I buy a kicker down-firing sub at their tent sale. They schedule me for Oct 3. The installer on this day I will say did a good job. Set my new sub up. Couldn’t figure out the phone call thing. They told me to take it to the dealership. So I did. And guess what. MY CAR DOESN’T EVEN HAVE A FACTORY AMP. I was lied to. I had another appointment for November 4. I cancelled it. I called another company and took it to them. The Ap4 CH41 that creative installed was faulty. They fixed my whole car in 4.5 hours. They had to rewire several things that were wired wrong. So not only did I have to buy a whole other sub because they set my original one up wrong, I had to turn around and pay to replace a faulty part that they installed. I also have a dent in my dash and I was lied to. Save yourself A LOT of money and headache and go somewhere else. I had a...

I give them 2 stars only because the installs, tint and equipment bought has not given me problems.

Now about their service: I don’t complain much but I can’t not say something because I’m always interested in improvements. I have taken my new cars in (3) for the past 5 yrs. they have tinted each one and switched sub and amp from one to the other from old to the new each time. It has never been a smooth situation and always a major headache! They get me in and don’t do what we ask them to do (putting amp and base knob in the location we want). We have never gone in without an issue. This last time is the last time I deal with issues from them because I won’t ever go back. I have given them 3 install jobs, 3 tint jobs and keyless entry install with issues on each. Customer service really fails because the customer is wrong each time. The last install they put the amp on the back of our fold down seat and never once called to see where we wanted it put. I’m only mad because they don’t communicate at all!! Sorry.....no more service problems as I won’t be...