While you are waiting for that head unit delivery, here are some long term strategies for coping with limited head unit supplies.
Some retailers are placing a bigger focus on digital signal processors (DSPs). And you ask, but how does a shop become experts at installing them, and doing so profitably?
Five-store chain Car Tunes Stereo, MI was at the point it could install DSPs, but the installs were taking longer than planned. General Manager Nate Kubicz also believed the shop could get better sound from the products with more training. So they installed an Audison APF89BIT (with built in DSP) in Kubicz’s 2016 Series 5 BMW. Elettromedia then sent over training expert Ken Ward to tune the car, while training about 30 Car Tunes installers and salesmen.
It took Ward 20 minutes to tune a car that would have taken the Car Tunes crew two hours to tune. Ward left the shop with a checklist and an amazing sounding BMW, which can now serve as the shop’s demo car. Car Tunes plans to invite customers on social media and its website, to schedule appointments to hear what car audio should sound like.
One way Jon Nordstrom of Cave Man Technologies is tackling the shortages is to refurbish old or broken radios. He looks for them on OfferUp and buys screens and resells them to customers or to dealerships who are glad to have them these days when radios are scarce.
“I’ve learned to repair broken screens,” Nordstrom said. A replacement screen is just an $80 screen with a ribbon and there’s a top layer “digitizer” (basically a clear grid that adds the touchscreen component), also with a ribbon for about $60 or $70. “It’s an easy fix to recreate something that was a piece of trash. They take out a lot of broken radios at dealerships and I have piles. You can actually get parts cheap on a $600 radio, update the firmware and I have a refurbished radio I can sell back to the dealership or customer for $350. It’s been really lucrative for me,” he said.
Another approach to the shortages, is to find other products to pitch to customers. Shawn Gunnels of Mobile Music, WA said the shop is expanding its role in automotive accessories and customization. Not long ago it worked on a snowmobile trailer, adding an automated folding bed (HappiJac), lighting, batteries and more. It subcontracted the HappiJac work, but, in all, it’s taking advantage of its tech’s skills, installing a stove and sink in the trailer. “You have to think out of the box. If I don’t have radios, what else can I do?” The trailer is a $15K job. He buys the parts through distribution or a wholesale account, but noted he’s running into some of the same problems with radios, as some parts are in short supply.
Tint World of Ft. Lauderdale has picked up some fleet work on zip cars and Get Around cars. Each install pays $150. “It’s not huge but most are done in under an hour and we do five cars a week,” said Richard Flynn General Manager for four Tint World locations in South Florida.
Like others, Mohammed Arman of Armando Sounds in Chicago is doing more integration work. “I’m not going to sit there and say I don’t have anything [in stock] right now. I started to get more into DSPs. A lot of consumers don’t realize we can make their sound system sound pretty good without swapping out the head unit. It’s going to be a shift to DSPs.”
source: https://www.ceoutlook.com/2021/12/06/dealers-plan-long-term-for-shortages/
