Circuit City Stories: Episode 2

[Tripper]

Hello, and welcome back to another installment of "Circuit City Stories". For those of you who are not aware, Circuit City was a US based electronics retailer that went out of business in March of 2009.

Episode 1

Car stereo equipment is horribly marked up. Installers got gear for 75% off from most manufactures. More or free stuff came if you completed "E-Learnings". So the 4 of us had it all and changed out gear regularly.

Remote starters were really just becoming mainstream and python had just released the 990xp with a claimed 1 mile range on their two way receiver. (It really was about half of that with low/no interference). They retailed for something like $1k at first, but the directed rep gave us 3 which my boss auctioned off to the fastest installers (so last place had to pay cost @ $250) ...sucks to be Jim, you slow twit.

We all drove cars with manual transmissions. If you came to Circuit City with your 3 peddler wanting a remote start we'd send you to a more professional shop that sold a "Code Alarm" branded unit made so shitty and inconvenient that you wouldn't even want it, let's not even talk about how expensive it was so that it was safer to use.

Us installers however could do whatever we wanted to our own cars. So we all jumped the clutch switch and parked our cars in neutral...LOL.

I had a 2004 WRX STi at the time. What I did was scrape a little paint off around the bottom of the shifter and slid a spring around shifter's shaft. It took a relay or 3 but the end result is. If the car is in any gear, metal touches spring, spring grounds relay, relay "un jumps" the clutch switch, car will not start. If it's in neutral, the metal part of the shifter does not touch the spring, car thinks the clutch is depressed, starts without issue. I also had a fuse I could pull to disable the whole thing for when someone else had the car/service.

BUUUUUUUUUUUUT I didn't do that right away.

It was only after an incident that I decided I needed a safety net.

One of the installers I've not mentioned before, well call him "Tim" had a lancer ralliart, but he hopped in a friend's car to go to lunch one day while the rest of us were outside of the install bays doing parking lot shenanigans.

There are two ways to configure the amount of crank time for a remote start. The right way, by poking through the firewall and running a wire from the brain to the tach signal wire, or the lazy way by programming an arbitrary amount of time into the brain of the unit.

Do I need to tell you that Tim did it the lazy way?

He also left his car in gear...

Well with all of these powers combined, Tim managed to sit on his keys in such a way that he trigged remote start from about a quarter mile away and it started in gear!

Luckily no one was between it and the parking brick/wall.

We all make noises similar to those in the background when Toretto is tearing down Brian O in the first FnF as it slammed into the wall.

But wait...there's more...Remote start units, when unsuccessful will try twice more, just for you!!!

So Tim's car smokes the wall and bounces back a little further than where it started and tries again, this time with a little more gusto and bounces even further back. The last time it cracked the wall, both head lights, and did the rest of the damage you'd imagine. Tim even knew it was happening, as soon as he felt it go off in his pocket they were out of range for him to cancel it! A true tragedy!!! Even after that it was only myself and one other that elected to install safety measures.

Believe it or not that Python 990 is still installed and working! It has been hacked in and out of 4 cars by yours truly. It currently resides in the ranger that I sold to my FIL, remote start de-activated after he took ownership.

[interstate366]

Given how sad Best Buy is these days, I wonder what a modern brick-and-mortar Circuit City would be like in comparison.

[ttyymmnn]

@interstate366 said in Circuit City Stories: Episode 2:

Given how sad Best Buy is these days, I wonder what a modern brick-and-mortar Circuit City would be like in comparison.

We have a Fry's not too far from my house. In its heyday, walking into Fry's was like walking into the Internet. They had everything you could possible imagine. I went there the other day looking for a keyboard, and it's now a pathetic shell of its former self. A third of the floor space is simply blocked off and empty. Pretty much all they carry now is cheap computers and peripherals, gadgets like you'd find at Kohl's or JC Penney, and cheap perfume and other "As seen on TV!" garbage. I'm surprised they're even open. I did go into a Best Buy the same day, and while it's better, it's still not like it was. Amazon is killing everything.

[Chariotoflove]

@tripper

This series is horrifying and yet gripping at the same time. I can't look away.

Please continue.

[facw]

@ttyymmnn At least Microcenter is still appearing prosperous (though I really don't understand how)

[i86hotdogs]

Love these stories. I was too young to experience Circuit City in its peak, but I did frequent it every Black Friday. My dad LOVES Black Friday shopping. He spends weeks prepping for it. Setting up itinerary of where we need to camp out, what deals are we grabbing. The best part, was we never were going for the hot ticket items like sub $100 plasma TVs or game systems. It was always the smaller items that still were marked down erroneously. It's an annual tradition my dad gets me the heavily discounted 3lb summer sausage Menard's sells every Black Friday.

I was 8 years old in this story.

We set up shop outside a Circuit City to get...power strips. Yep. Power strips were 50 cents each on this holiday. Limit was 2 per person, of course, so I had to tag along to grab a total of 4 strips at a beaming cost of $2 and change. The same store was also giving away the newest Gateway computers (remember those?) for about 50% off. I want to say they were being sold for $500 or something like that. So majority of the crowd was there for those.

Doors opened and a sea of shoppers flooded the store fighting for these computers. We made a bee line towards the power strips and made our way out of the store in less than 30 minutes. As a reward for helping out, I did get Midtown Madness for PC as well. Although I couldn't open it until Christmas.

[WhoIsTheLeader]

@facw said in Circuit City Stories: Episode 2:

@ttyymmnn At least Microcenter is still appearing prosperous (though I really don't understand how)

Every time I go in there it's like stepping back in time. Partially because of the surprising crowds, partially because of the store. No idea how they are doing well but if you want to try out a keyboard, they're your store.

[zipfuel]

@i86hotdogs loved that game so much, especially all the downloadable mods! Also the surge protector power bars had a massive markup when I worked at Bestbuy. I think I got mine for $5 on staff discount down from ~$30 right before I left, it's still running the TV etc.

[i86hotdogs]

@zipfuel That was my first racing game that wasn't cartoonish Mario Kart type of racing. I loved the regular cars in it too. Basic New Edge Mustang GT, Ford F-350, Cadillac El Dorado, a city bus. Growing up around Chicago also made me love the game even more.

[zipfuel]

@i86hotdogs looking back even the "fast" cars in that game were pretty slow with maybe the exception of the Panoz race car and that couldn't handle the kerbs.
Loved that it was a driving sim with an open environment though, would just cruise around at night.

[i86hotdogs]

@zipfuel We couldn't unlock the GTR-1 to save our lives! And the Panoz Roadster had the durability of tissue paper. Honestly the most decent vehicle was the Mustang Fastback. Midtown Madness 2 had a fresh lineup afterwards. But I was more nostalgic to the first one.

[facw]

@i86hotdogs said in Circuit City Stories: Episode 2:

Gateway computers

A had a Gateway (I think a 486) up until this summer, when my parents moved and I had to empty my assorting hoardings from their garage. In any event, the tractor seats at the Gateway stores were cool.

[i86hotdogs]

@facw We had some sort of Gateway that had the HUGEST computer tower in the world (tower* although it laid flat). We had to put it in to an old armoire because no regular desk would accomodate it.

[Shop-Teacher]

@ttyymmnn We have a Fry's here too, and "shell of it's former self" doesn't even begin to describe it. I went there about six months ago, and it looked like the final two days of a going out of business sale. They had almost nothing. It was frankly quite sad. According to the googles, that location is still somehow open.

[Shop-Teacher]

@tripper That reminds me of a story from a buddy of mine. He had bought a not so tastefully modified Civic, and took it to a shop for ... something (I don't remember what, this was 20 years ago). The shop recognized the car, and asked him if the remote starter they had installed still worked.

My friend didn't even realize the car HAD a remote starter, so they told him how to use it.

The car was a manual.

The car was in gear.

The car had his grandma sitting in it.

Grandma went for a short ride into the back of the car parked in front of the Civic. She was fine, thankfully.

[zipfuel]

@i86hotdogs can't remember if I won the panoz fairly or just ran some cheats to get it (the one that made the NPCs slide like air hockey pucks when hit was fun) it wasn't great and really fragile. Hence my love of the user built cars I downloaded off the forums! I vaguely recall a Ferrari F50 that was very fast, well modeled but waay out of scale, it was as wide as the highway lanes, there was a yellow stingray Vette that played zztop on the load screen and some madman built a nearly undriveable black dragster too.
Midtown 2 I downloaded a F&F style R34 skyline with 1000hp and a nitro boost instead of a handbrake, I could hit that tunnel jump and fly over half the city in that thing.
It's possible I still have it all on an old HDD someplace.

[i86hotdogs]

@zipfuel You definitely had a modified version of the game, because Ferrari's and dragsters weren't part of the original game. IIRC, you had to win a bunch of races in the hardest setting to unlock the GTR-1. My 10 year old self couldn't compete at that level. MM2 was an easier path to unlock the GTR-1. The hardest challenges in MM2 unlocked special paint schemes.

[RacinBob]

I laughed so hard I cried. Well told... Prime Oppo

[Tripper]

@shop-teacher lol oh boy poor grandma!

[WhoIsTheLeader]

@zipfuel said in Circuit City Stories: Episode 2:

@i86hotdogs can't remember if I won the panoz fairly or just ran some cheats to get it (the one that made the NPCs slide like air hockey pucks when hit was fun) it wasn't great and really fragile. Hence my love of the user built cars I downloaded off the forums! I vaguely recall a Ferrari F50 that was very fast, well modeled but waay out of scale, it was as wide as the highway lanes, there was a yellow stingray Vette that played zztop on the load screen and some madman built a nearly undriveable black dragster too.
Midtown 2 I downloaded a F&F style R34 skyline with 1000hp and a nitro boost instead of a handbrake, I could hit that tunnel jump and fly over half the city in that thing.
It's possible I still have it all on an old HDD someplace.

I'm very sad I lost my copy of MM2

[Shop-Teacher]

@tripper said in Circuit City Stories: Episode 2:

@shop-teacher lol oh boy poor grandma!

Grandma ripped him a new one. Deservedly so.