Unless you find someone who is specifically interested in the hobby I expect that you'll get pennies on the dollar added, if that.

 

If I'm looking at used vehicles I want a vehicle that is 100% unmodified. If it has been modified, I take pause and will likely steer clear of it because I see it as inheriting someone else's potential problems. I'm also looking at the 1-3 year old vehicles though so that makes a difference too.

 

If you have the means to return the vehicle to stock, I would likely go that route. The perceived value of the aftermarket equipment is in most cases not worth the equipment itself. Also, even the idea of aftermarket equipment is enough to scare potential buyers away. Unless it's a professionally installed show car, I think you should pull it all out and salvage whatever value you can (or reuse it in another build).

 

If you can, return it to stock with stock equipment. If not, buy cheap coaxials and/or aftermarket headunit and throw it in and sell the stuff in the cars now on here if not planning to reuse. 99.9% of the general public wouldn't know the difference between a BOSS coaxial and a full (insert high dollar front stage here) setup. Sad but true.

 

I would echo what others have said.

If you restore it to stock, potential buyers won't ask themselves, "where's the killer aftermarket stereo?" ...while many/most may look askance if it's there.

 

...while many/most may look askance if it's there.

Learned a new word; 1000 points awarded to you.

If I'm looking at used vehicles I want a vehicle that is 100% unmodified. If it has been modified, I take pause and will likely steer clear of it because I see it as inheriting someone else's potential problems. I'm also looking at the 1-3 year old vehicles though so that makes a difference too.

My vehicle is much older, but point taken. I don't really feel like digging up photos of the build log and yada yada yada to convince someone of the quality of my worksmanship, since we've all agreed 99.9% of the population wouldn't notice or care. I built everything using adapters to the OEM harnesses, so I should be able to return to stock in < 1hr, most of which will simply be re-connecting the door tweets.

To ErinH, Viggen, and others, my first thought was two separate listings, but to try the "bonus already installed" ad first. I've negotiated with a couple buyers around this already, and the stereo is proving to be more of a distraction than a tool at this price point.

9-0 poll results in the first couple hours is a good indication that I should be returning to stock, so thanks for that.

FS ad pending on custom Infiniti G35 coupe install accessories

 

Unless you're in a big hurry to sell the car, it can't hurt to list it as is for what you feel it's worth and see if there's any interest. If there isn't then gut the gear and re-list it.

Odds are you won't sell it with the aftermarket stuff in it, at least not for what you'd likely want. There have been a few people on this forum who have sold their competition winning vehicles and there have been people who have tried to sell their car + system and wound up parting it out. Just depends on the market for what you're selling and want to get for it.

 

Unless you're in a big hurry to sell the car, it can't hurt to list it as is for what you feel it's worth and see if there's any interest. If there isn't then gut the gear and re-list it.



Odds are you won't sell it with the aftermarket stuff in it, at least not for what you'd likely want. There have been a few people on this forum who have sold their competition winning vehicles and there have been people who have tried to sell their car + system and wound up parting it out. Just depends on the market for what you're selling and want to get for it.

Nobody ever wants my stuff I get those side glances like I Rice'd it out

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Private sells can be a real hastle at times. I just email 999 dealerships until I get a trade-in value I like. I remove everything and make it look factory. It's why I really don't like super custom installs.

My last vehicle took an hour to make safe and return to stock

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When I sold my last car, I listed it with and without the stereo.

Before I did that, I new I wouldn’t get anything for the pg elite amps and hertz Mille components so I removed those. Put cheap component set and used the deck for power......

I was still able to get a few hundred extra out of them due to the alpine NAV..... but I found the right buyer who really wanted a modified Saab.

 

but might only be perceived to be valuable by 1% of the population (bad thing).

I think a full 1% is being extremely generous. Probably more like 0.1% or 0.01%

If I'm looking at used vehicles I want a vehicle that is 100% unmodified. If it has been modified, I take pause and will likely steer clear of it because I see it as inheriting someone else's potential problems. I'm also looking at the 1-3 year old vehicles though so that makes a difference too.

I'm in that 1% (or 0.1%, or 0.01%), and I'm the same way. In fact, I was recently shopping for a Toyota 4Runner in the 2003-2009 generation. I found one which had some sort of double din head unit. I immediately started wondering what kind of hack job they did to install it. "Thankfully," that car had other issues which made me pass on it.

I'm not saying your install is of poor quality, it may be better than what I can do, but as a buyer, I don't really have any way of knowing that.

 

i've always replaced the good stuff with the stock unit (if i still had it), some junk I had around, or something cheap that I could find. As long as it makes sound, the 99.9% wont know/care.

 

depends. If its an expensive system, i'd uninstall it. If not, i'd probably just leave it.

 

I mention Audiofrog and I get crossed eyes. My brother is an old 80s/90s guy and he just glosses over. Sometimes they get excited and ask if I have Rockford equipment [emoji14]

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If you want to trade it in or sell it to a dealer, you'll get LESS with a modified system than you would with stock. I know this from experience; went to trade in an Acadia, took it back home & put the stock stuff back in, got ~15% more money on the trade after.

I doubt any place would look at the speakers, but they'll definitely check out the head unit & functionality.

 

To top it off, when I buy a used vehicle as a car audio guy I prefer to crack open a virginI think my 01 Silverado had a system in it for the one year the first owner had it but they did a pretty good job covering it up. Being my first car audio vehicle I did some bad n00b stuff I'm not proud of:blush:

 

Everything you guys are saying is true. I also try to pull everything out I can and hack in what I can. But I am usually selling very high mileage vehicles where they would probably sell even without a radio. In some cases if I can't restore to stock I'll just write off the equipment and barely even mention it. Its not a big deal that my 2003 Dodge Ram had an aftermarket deck in it, don't have to tell them that behind the door panels are Beyma 8" pro-audio drivers !

But this whole discussion brings up that kind of sad side to our hobby which I learned 30 years ago. NOBODY cares about this stuff, you can barely interest someone in it for a 1 minute conversation. I used to build serious hot rod muscle cars and 85% of the men at least would be very impressed and interested in what I was doing/building. Now I'll spend 4 months putting in my audio system and I will hardly even bother telling people about it, they DON"T CARE. I drive a lot of people around in my truck for mountain bike stuff and other than occasionally turning it up for a single song on the way back from the trail I don't even show it off cuz the masses don't appreciate it anyway. May as well be a 10" sub in a prefab box and some 6*9's.

Going to my first car audio event this weekend, it will be really weird to meet people who find it interesting. I can literally say in 30 years of dabbling in car audio, I don't think I've ever met and talked to a fellow geek in person about it. Thank God for DIYMA, lol.

 

Over the years I've done:
- no uninstall
- partial uninstall
- full uninstall and back to OEM

 

Pull the system. Get it back to stock or as close as you can.

Use the gear in the next car, or set up a garage stereo.

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pull most leave enough to tempt the next driver
make it clean and re-use 75%

 

whenever I install anything in my own vehicles I do it so when I decide to get rid of the vehicle I can take it out, I never chop up any part of my vehicles ,I sold my 96 accord years ago with the wall and 2 15s that were in it with the rest of the system because a kid wanted it to come with it, but that has been the only vehicle I have Done that with

 

IMHO

In general a stock system will get you more buyer interest w/average offers.

A car with an aftermarket system will get you less buyer interest...and low ball offers. Yet you'll also have a higher chance to sell the car for more than the average. All it takes is patience and for one buyer to fall in love with the system (therefore a little luck).

 

In some cases just having anything in there scares some buyers away. Once some see aftermarket anything, they move on. People dont want your problems even if it isnt a problem.

Pull it, get it back to stock or as close to stock as you can.

The other thing is you will never really get the money back. Unless you are selling on a forum or site with a captive audience looking for car audio, average person will not pay for it. They will see book value and ask for book value

 

A good friend of mine taught me years ago about car audio.

"Make it look like you were never there"

This applies to having systems as well as deleting them. You can tell a lot about a car by taking it apart. I mentioned to someone that the inside of their door was painted, the response was that was when they fell asleep on the hwy.

 

Return to stock. If you don't have the original OEM most are dirt cheap on Ebay.

No one wants a used vehicle that has been messed with. Even we wouldn't because it would probably be something we don't like. \

Also applies to alarm systems. I bought a 99 Miata The alarm system kept locking me out when I was on the road. When I removed it I found a rats nest of unprofessional
hack wiring.

Return everything to stock . You don't even want a potential buyer wondering about what kind of wiring changes have been made.

Roadbird
Gary

 

Back to stock. My gear is worth too much to me and not enough to most car buyers.

 

Short story to put a bow on this:
Returned everything to stock, but didn't have time to remove the aftermarket a-pillars that had wide-band drivers in them (unplugged). Aftermarket Aura NS6 6" in the doors, factory tweeter in the door, playing from stock Bose amp. Sounded, uh, like a factory setup.
Buyer: "I thought you had some cool aftermarket audio stuff in here."
Me: "I removed it and returned everything to stock"
Buyer: "Does it have bluetooth?"
Me: "I think so, I never tried it. I think it's only for calls, and only plays out the right speakers"
Buyer: "OK"
Car sold that day, and I am confident the buyer will never touch the audio.

TL;DR: You people are weird and no one cares about audio and why are we even doing this you guys.