To make a long story short, I’ve been chasing an unknown battery draw for about a year and a half on my 2007 LR3. The local repair shop finally tracked it down, and it turns out the culprit is the amp under the seat.

I really like my music, so I’m planning to buy a used replacement amp on eBay (part number XQK500095). Here’s where I’m unsure: the same shop quoted me $525 + tax in labor, saying it’s about 2.5 hours because they have to remove the rear seat and program the amp to the car.

Does that sound accurate? Or is this something I could reasonably tackle myself?

I’ve seen a few posts suggesting these amps might be plug-and-play, but I’m not totally sure if programming is actually required. Any insight or firsthand experience would be hugely appreciated. Thanks!

 

That is robbery. The amp you get needs to match. One quick way is the color of the label, some yellow some blue. But from there it needs to be the same part number. The issue with these amps is they have a decent failure rate, often with cutting out and disappearing volume control pin the main head unit. So your used one could potentially be defective so if you buy one make sure they take returns or have a warranty period.

I would get a second opinion. Or I would at least pull the fuse for the amp and see if your power issues persist or not.

As for replacement, I don't recall removing the rear seat. Pretty sure just adjusted the front seat, which the amp is under, fully forward and upwards to remove it. And I never had to program it for the car, they are direct swap just like the main head unit in the dash.

 

What Dakota said.

Definitely do not need to remove rear seat. It's under the Passenger Front seat. IF you feel you need to remove the front seat, it takes about 15 min to do. Plenty of videos on how to do that. Then just unplug the old one and plug in the newer one.