The thing is, they did a "pretty neat" soldering job and that's worth a lot IMO.

Other than the crap 3-weeks they took to "own up", they really just fell down on expecting IDC header connections being "foolproof" - they usually are and the empeg is the exception to the rule here as far as most 'normal' domestic servicing work is concerned.

I'm not trying to make excuses for their handling of all this - it sounds like they behaved quite badly and they certainly made a major schoolboy error in not paying attention to the IDC header connectors before removing them. We don't know what their normal line of work is but I bet it involves 'keyed' IDC headers.

I don't have particularly good vibes about this company either but, to sum up, their soldering is good and if they can replace a fuse then the car player in question is almost certainly up and running once more.

Edit: After re-reading all of this, perhaps it really should go straight to Rob Schofield. After all, if something else goes wrong with this 'other' repairer it's gonna be a whole other story by the time Rob gets to see it.