2003 - Front Driver's door speakers intermittently work

[ddiggles]

Hi All,

I have a 2003 Matrix XRS with the Moon & Tunes package. I've had the car it's entire life.

Fairly recently, my driver's side door speakers (tweeter & woofer) have been intermittently working. It started this winter, on a very cold morning I noticed no sound coming out of them when I turned the radio on. Upon closer inspection, if I moved the fade & balance to isolate the front driver's side door, you could hear just a tiny bit of audio coming out of the tweeter (staticy sounding) but nothing else.

After the car warmed up the speakers would start working again just fine. Fast forward a few months, the driver's side door speakers became more and more intermittent in their functionality and now they barely ever work.

I replaced the HU with a Clarion CX501 a week ago to see if that would help the problem (got the wiring all done correctly, GM05B harness etc.), and tried it with and without the built in amp (just by disconnecting the connector that goes into the amp), and the problem remains. Note that when the driver's side door speakers do come on, they sound just fine.

Since the speakers sound fine when they work, it would seem that there's a loose connection somewhere. I'm curious - has anyone else had a similar issue? What would you recommend as troubleshooting steps? I'm thinking inspecting the speaker wires behind the harness and/or in the door, but not sure what else to try.

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

-Dirk

[Derf]

I would suspect corrosion of the speaker connectors in the door. That said, it seems unlikely that both the tweeter and the woofer would have the same issue since they are routed via two separate connectors in the door. To check you would have to take the door skin off and pull apart the connectors. Before pulling apart the connectors, suggest "wiggling" the connectors with the radio on to see if the audio comes and goes.

Following overview of taking door skin off, starts around 2:30
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOGgu6NbOnA" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

While working on my Vibe I did find one of the speaker wire pins was not properly installed in the amp harness, just had to finish pushing it into the connector

[ddiggles]

I would suspect corrosion of the speaker connectors in the door. That said, it seems unlikely that both the tweeter and the woofer would have the same issue since they are routed via two separate connectors in the door. To check you would have to take the door skin off and pull apart the connectors. Before pulling apart the connectors, suggest "wiggling" the connectors with the radio on to see if the audio comes and goes.

Following overview of taking door skin off, starts around 2:30
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOGgu6NbOnA" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

While working on my Vibe I did find one of the speaker wire pins was not properly installed in the amp harness, just had to finish pushing it into the connector

Thanks! For some reason now the speakers are working fine - I'm guessing it has to do with the weather. The problem started winter 2013, and now that the weather is warmer it's gone away. I'll have to see it returns this winter...

[ddiggles]

Aaaand driver's side driver is now completely dead (or at least has no sound at all coming out of it). The tweeter seems to be ok.

Next time I visit home I'll take off the door skin per the video you posted (Thanks!) and see if I can identify if the wires are corroded / disconnected. Hopefully they are and the speaker is still ok!

[EricTMah]

The doors are known for corrosion on speaker leads. I'm almost 100% certain that's your problem. Take it apart and have a look. you could clip the wire harness and just hard wire the speakers in and use heat shrinks to eliminate any other corrosion issues. You may want to use a bit of non conductive grease for where the speaker wires connect directly to the speaker. If you see corrosion there, clean up the connections and grease it up and you should be fine. While you're at it, you might want to do the same on the other side as well.