Maximum Audio Video — Local services in Tampa

This will be a fairly long review and I will try and keep it organized... In 2010 I took my brand new Ford F-350 Harley Davidson edition truck to them to have a stereo, viper smart start, alarm, and have roof marker lights installed. The expierence all started with their snake oil sales associate Troy (I'm not sure if he still works there or not. If he does avoid him like the plague.) who suggested certain speakers, an amp, and so on. My requests were to maintain a factory like form and function, but with booming sound and high tech capability. What I ended up with has been nothing but headaches for the last 6 years and is still something I deal with to this day.

My biggest complaint with Troy is that he isn't realistic. He promises you the world, but in reality the installers only have so much capability. Specifically related to the roof lights I had them install. Again, one of my primary requests was factory like form and function. Anyway, I asked Troy multiple times if some sort of template would be used to position the lights correctly, and he assured me they had a template from Ford that they used. Well, guess what. They did not and I ended up with 5 evenly spaced lights on the roof of my truck serving no function other then "looking cool".

Let's move on to the stereo and the remote start and alarm. All in all I have no problem with the products they sold. The speakers, sub and amp are all very nice as well as the viper smart start and alarm system. It's the installation I have a problem with. I'm not sure why they did so poorly because they are a fairly reputable shop. After they had the truck for a few days Rob called and said the truck was ready to go! It sounded great and that I would love it! So I drive over to Tampa (one hour away) to pick it up. I get the keys and head out to check everything out. The first thing I do is press the remote start button. No dice. So I go right back inside and tell Troy it doesn't work. So we go outside and I show him, so put that on the punch list. I go sit in the truck, and start it up. Upon start up the sub makes an incredibly loud "thump" loud enough to make your ears bleed it seemed. Add that to the punch list. The stereo also did not continue to play after turning the truck off and before opening the door. Add that to the punch list. At this point Troy got Rob and we went through the steps and the list of thing that didn't work. They decided it would be best for me to leave the truck there and let them try and fix everything.

To keep this incredibly long review short, I drove back and forth between my house and Tampa about five times. Each time I would show up and something would be fixed but not the other, and vise versa. At one point they wanted to use my spare key to get the remote start to work properly. I said, yea sure if you want to buy me another $450 key from Ford. All in all they eventually got everything to work (kinda). They offered no discounts for their failed attempts and my multiple trips to try and pick the truck up.

The ONLY reason I gave two stars is because they didn't ever really "quit" they tried over and over to get it right even though they never really did.

Since then I have had the truck to a different audio shop and they were able to get some additional features to work like the music playing after the key is turned off and before the door opens up, which was something I was told by Maximum Audio was not possible. The other shop found the factory wiring harness to be a mess. There were wires spliced that didn't need to be spliced, exposed wiring, no heat shrink and the list goes on. In another instance I had some warranty work done by Ford for a blend door actuator which required the dash to be taken apart. Ford found the Viper smart start module just dangling in the dash with wires EVERYWHERE. Not cool.

All in all I would not recommend them. To this day the back speakers don't work, and I have off and on problems with the remote start. Nothing but headaches. My next vehicle will...

Liars and thieves. This guy quoted me 360 before taxes over the phone. I went down there and we discussed adding sound deadening around the speakers and just behind them in the door. He said he could do it for 20 dollar extra per door. They charged me for it but it was not done! This is what they called their premium door install. I call it 80 dollars stolen. He complained about how my bass amp was installed saying it was just sliding around. Then he charged me $50 dollars on top of the install to mount the amp to a board? And another $35 for the wire. If im paying $150 for the amp install, why would you charge me separately for the board you mount it to and the wiring. What exactly is included with the install? He charged me $20 bucks just to reseat the wires in my old amp talking about it was a fire hazard. The scam didnt stop there. On my receipt it says my rear system battery was swelling and would need to be replaced. After charging me $75 to put it in a $12 box. The problem is my battery was not swelling and it worked fine before the installation. The guy said it sounds great. He lied!! Both my amps were turned all the way down, and nothing was tuned. I spent 20 minutes setting it up and went on a 45 minute drive and nearly fried my brand new amp. My rear battery died and the amp was running on 9 volts before cutout. I immediately called them and he said he could not see me for two days and the issue was with my rear battery. Im not going to wait two more days after it took you two days for a job you said would only take a few hours. So i go out and purchase a new battery. The new battery does the same thing. Works great for about an hour. Of course this is a sunday and they are closed. I go online and start looking for cables to do the big 3 upgrade and decide to check under my hood and see if ill need a new fuse block for the bigger cable. It turns out these morons never put a fuse in the block. I dont believe they forgot. I truely believe they were trying to over charge me for abattery replacement. At this point I want it all ripped out, and my money back. I did not get what I paid for, and i got seriously overcharged. A shotty install of front and backs speakers and a four channel amp started at $360 and ended up a few dollars short of $900. Not including the battery and fuse I shouldnt have had to purchase. Stear clear of these scam artist. Please do yourself a favor, and spend your...

I'm not one to write reviews because I know we have good days and bad days but the guy I just spoke with on the phone was the worst. First off, a friend of mines had told me this place did good. I live in Wesley Chapel, so it's like 30-35 minutes from me. So I called to see how much I have to spend to put in the deck I have, which is a pioneer appradio2. I have everything except for the harness, double din kit for 2010 Dodge Challenger, and a antenna adapter. The guy starts to tell me that if they gave every customer a quote on the phone, they'd never get any work done, and how their customers aren't concerned with saving pennies on the dollar and I'm like, I just called to see how much I'd be spending so I can plan and manage my money. He then starts to repeat himself and adding more things in between like " our work speaks for itself, we have real professionals, not some young kids" and I'm like, man I just wanted to know how much I'm going to spend. I'm sorry but I'm not rich but I'm not poor either. I have rich friends and I have poor friends and the ones that don't care about watching every penny and controlling every dollar end up in bad financial situations. Bottom line is, I was going to spend my money with these guys on the fact of my friend saying they did really good work. Now, I'll never know because I'll never take my business to someone who acts like this. I own two businesses and would never treat not one customer like that. Customers aren't always right but they're the reason you have a job and can feed your family at the end of the day. By the way, MCOR gave me a quote and I have an appointment for...