Hello all,

Just joined today but I have been reading posts for the past few weeks and thanks for all the good info and for steering me towards this unit, I think I made the right choice. Anyways I bought the D3 for my girlfriend because she just got a new car and because I am obviously such a thoughtful guy I decided to make this a surprise for her, but everything so far has not been going as planned so I thought I would share my story with you all.

I ordered the unit for her 2 weeks ago (D3, Ipod, Bluetooth, and Backup Camera) planning a picture perfect surprise. It all started with her excitement of her new car so just like anyone she had to think of things to go buy to make her driving experience better. First she calls me from the Verizon store telling me she wants a bluetooth kit for her car but they dont have it in stock. So I make up a story and tell her dont worry about it I know a place online I can get one and a few hours later called her to tell her I ordered her one and it was on backorder, ok not a big deal. Then she calls me from the Apple store telling me shes buying an iTrip. Uggh I tell her that my friend has a giftcard for the Apple store so when I see him and I will get it from him and give it to her so she can get the iTrip. Now, im like ok, thats everything I hope, so now she cant ruin the surprise. The plan is this weekend I am going down to LBI with a few friends from school. We are gonna spend the weekend at the beach and then Sunday I was gonna have my girlfriend come down to my friends house in LBI who works in an auto shop. He is good with all the tech/install stuff so he proposed that he would install her equipment while I was at the beach with her. Props to him for being a good friend! So first my order came in except for the Bluetooth because it was on backorder at Crutchfeld, but they garaunteed me to receive it by this Thursday so I can bring it to LBI. Tuesday after work I am pulling into my driveway in reverse when I hear a loud crack and feel a bump. Get out of the car and the UPS driver decides rather than leave the package by the front door I will leave it in the middle of the driveway. The bluetooth is crushed into a million pieces. So I called Crutchfeld and told them that I pull up to my house and there is a destroyed package on my driveway and that the contents are broken. They apologize and luckily had another unit in stock and overnight me a brand new BT. All I had to do is call UPS and have them pickup the broken one, taking fault that the driver dropped of a broken package. OOOF that was a close one but the new BT came in yesterday just in time.

So now of course my GF doesnt know how to get to LBI (being a girl lol JK). So she asks her roommate if she can borrow her TomTom for the day so she can get down there. Her RM says NO, because she said my GF wouldnt know how to use it! (What a B*tch, thankfully this beast is moving out next month) So the spiteful girl that my GF is she goes out last night (and I find out this morning) to Best Buy and purchases her own portable GPS! She emails me this morning explaining that she now has a NAV because her RM pissed her off. Of course lol this had to happen because G-d forbid something goes right with my plan. Best part is that when my GF comes home with the GPS her RM says, "Oh, you didnt need to buy your own GPS, if I knew you wanted to borrow it that bad I would have given it to you." WTF? Now I currently have the choice of telling her to return it to ruin the surprise or just let her hang on to it and return it after this Sunday. I am choosing to let her use it because 1) she will never make it to LBI without it 2) I still dont want to ruin the surprise. So I figured that after the install on Sunday we would go return it to Best Buy and get the money back. BB has a return policy of 14 days but of course after reading the site today there is a 15% restocking fee for GPS unless it is a malfunctioning unit. So I either need to come up with a good scam story to get all the money back or I have to pay the 15%. At this point I lost my patience with dealing with this. I have spent all this time trying to keep it a surpise that Ill just paying the stupid fee, I dont even care anymore. It will just be worth it to please my GF and have her enjoy it, but now more importantly to come home Sunday night and see the look on her RM face when my GF has got over a G's worth of cool stuff in her car when all her RM's boyfriend did is just go out for valentines day and get her this crappy $100 portable NAV. At this point I think I will enjoy the satisfaction of the jealousy eating away at her RM then the look on my GF face when she sees what I got her. Does that make me a bad person? Anywho, I can only pray now that the install goes successfully on Sunday. I wont be surprised to see my GF pull up in her car with a D3 already installed because she didnt like her other NAV so she stopped on the way over to LBI and got it installed. I think it will be a long time before I try and surprise her again. Again, hopefully everything goes well on Sunday and hope you like the story. Thanks to all you Avic professionals out there!

Wow, thats a hell of story. Normally I wouldn't read all that, but I couldn't stop!

I agree, that was a pretty interesting story. Be sure to let us know how it turns out in the end.

you must be a journalist major.

ok im to lazy to read that its way to long anyone wana summarize it for me?

this may have been your first post, but the word count in it was the equivalent of about 100 of my posts. I didnt bother reading it because it was too long, but i hope someone solved your issue.

Yea I would just make your gf pay the 15%..haha

what kind of car does she have.? with the luck your having, i hope its not something your friend will have trouble with

If he does, he ain't the far from either of us. Though I'm not getting out of bed on sunday. The last day of my vacation and all.

Very nice. Good luck with that.

If you get someone "stupid" at BestBuy, they'll restock it no problem. Good luck for that!

So where do I begin. She comes up on Sunday and everything is going great. We go to the beach with a few people while my friend works on her car. First Crutchfield sends the wrong car kit but luckily my buddys grandfathers shop had a few extras so he went and picked one up. He did an amazing job with the unit and all the accessories. Everything looks flush and factory and works perfectly (bypassed too). She opened the car sat down and said something looked different but she couldnt tell what. ( I mean seriously). She looked around and asked if this big screen was there before. She then turned on the car and finally realized that she has a beautiful new unit. We played around with it and then left to go home. Then we get on the road and I am driving to my house and the gf to hers. I get a panicked call 20min after we left and apparently someone bumped my gf off the road into a bunch of bush's and trees. I turn around to go find her and the cops are already there. (Lucky for her the NAV told her the side street she was on). Apparently some guy was tailing her and flashing his high beams and tapped her and she "lost control" and swerved off the road. Her car was one inch on both sides from hitting trees. All that happened was her bumper got dented from hitting a pile of hay. A tow truck had to come and pull her out of the mud too. What can I say after this!? I guess just glad she was ok. Today we went to the shop and they knockws her bumper back in for free. All she has now is a few minor scratches on the bumper and she needs a wheel alignment. We are taking care of this tomorrow. We also went to BB to return the unit and said it was malfunctioning. They guy said before he gives a full refund he needs to check if its really broken. He turns it on and for some crazy reason it starts flipping out and shuts down. He agrees its broken and issues a full refund. Pure Luck! Well thats the conclusion. The system is working great and installed but now the car needs attention. From now on no more surprises. I think Ill just stick to wrapping paper and keep the suspense limited to 10 seconds. I think I may have received my first gray hair this weekend.

I definitely thought you were going to tell us that she was watching a movie on her nicely bypassed D3, ran off the road, and now her car is impounded...

Glad it was a different ending than that!

PLEASE DO NOT TAKE OFFENSE!! AND THAT MEANS WOMEN INCLUDED.

But I have a funny feeling your girl did not get "Bumped" off the road. Here's my reason: In your 1st post you give indication your GF is very Impatient. When she wants something she WANTS it NOW. You were very good at stalling for the most point.

This makes me believe that when she got in her car she was doing what most females do while driving...................................doing something else at the same time. Being in Awe at her new toy she could of been trying out the features on it. since you stated you got the info off of here, then 9x's out of 10 it is bypassed. Am I correct?

I don't know you from adam but ask your self this. Why wasn't she trying to call you as the person was flashing their lights at her? Yes she could of been scared but when scared you usually don't forget to call for help.

You also said the only damage was the front bumper and a few scratches. Was there any indication on the rear of a bump or paint trade off.

The reason I am telling you this is you spent close to 1k for her system and even though that is HER car, I IN MY OWN OPINION,don't think she is ready for that. She told you the story she HAD to tell the Cops. Did you at any point tell her that the reason they lock things out is for safety reasons and don't let cops see the DVD playing?

For her safety and your peace of mind IF I AM CORRECT, undo the Bypass until you know she can handle it.

In no way was I trying to be malicious or an AZZ hole in writing this, but I have a wife with a $200. phone for two years now and she STILL to this day refuses to set the 1 touch dial feature because it's to complicated but let me upgrade a stereo in a car and she is all over it.

So again please do not take offense just a habit I have when I hear something and it does not sound right.(EX-Drill Instructor for at-risk teenagers)

PLEASE DO NOT TAKE OFFENSE!! AND THAT MEANS WOMEN INCLUDED.

But I have a funny feeling your girl...

I thought it (perhaps even implicated it)... you said it. I am a woman, but this definitely sounds like a case of "woman driving." You can't really take away her toys because you're her boyfriend, not her dad. But beware when her dad comes hunting you down because you installed the distraction that screwed up the car he's probably paying for. haha! I think we've all had a few "lose our breath for a moment" close calls with our bypassed systems- you just gotta know how to cover and recover.

However, as a woman... I must say there are some frightening men out there on the road as well.

And to reiterate- we're not being jerks, just exploring the possibility of uncovering the whole truth to her story.

Believe me, lol I completely agree with you on that one. I told her straight out that I didnt believe her story because there would have been damage to the back. So I can see your version being true, but if I were in her shoes I probably would not have told the truth either haha. The last thing she wants is to aggravate me more and then get into trouble because she was playing around with her new toy. I can blame her for messing around with it but I guess not for lying. Woman or not, I would have done the same, especially telling the cops. Last thing I want the report to read is offroading due to plugging in ipod while changing music and watching that Traveling Pants movie. Agh, women, lol JK