Rear passenger speaker not working

[shawn474]

To make a long story short, I have the Entune non jbl factory stereo. I replaced all speakers awhile back with focal and Polk speakers and added a bazooka tube subwoofer. I just noticed my rear passenger speaker (and as a result my rear passenger hatch speaker) are no longer working. I have no idea how or why it happened but am trying to figure out the easiest way to troubleshoot. Would I simply use a multimeter at the rear speaker harness that goes into the back of the radio? Then at the speaker connection? If both are good that would establish continuity of the circuit correct? If the harness is bad at either connection, would it be as simple as replacing the harness? Just trying to wrap my head around this before I start ripping stuff apart. I have tried a couple of speakers at the location so it isn’t the speaker....it’s the connection. It was working fine for months up until yesterday. I have installed quite a few stereos in my day but have never had a problem so just looking for some advice from those who know way more than I do. Thanks in advance.

 

[e60ral]

how do you get the signal to the sub, by any chance did you use line level inputs by tapping off the speaker that is now not working?

 

[shawn474]

I ran the sub with taps to the front speakers. Both right rear speaker wire plugs in the back of the stereo registered on the multimeter. It seems like the rear right negative (white wire) is not working. The red (right positive rear speaker wire) registers on the multimeter at the rear speaker connection but the white (right negative rear speaker wire) does not register at the speaker harness. So the question what is the easiest way to go about replacing the factory rear speaker harness?

 

[shawn474]

Well, I spent all morning into afternoon yesterday chasing the problem. I isolated the problem to the rear passenger speaker to the rear right speaker negative wire. Somehow I have lost continuity to the negative speaker wire along the factory run and have no idea how or why. I shaved the wire at the harness and attached a new wire and ran it through the dash, kickplates and through the passenger side rubber boot down through the door to the speaker terminal. This was a royal pain in the a$$. BUT, my rear speaker now works. I even ran the wire to the hatch though the trim up through the rear antenna boot and into the hatch door frame thinking this would fix the rear hatch speaker issue as well.

Results.......I have clear connection at the rear passenger speaker now and no problems anymore there. However the rear right hatch speaker is not working. I attempted to use the new negative wire and the factory positive but only get very slight sound and buzzing coming from the rear hatch speaker. Its not that big of a deal to me that it isn't working, but if there are any suggestions to fix it, I would appreciate it. I got no reading with my multimeter at the hatch speaker terminals. Could I simply run a new positive wire spliced into the rear door speaker to get the sound out of the rear hatch speaker. IE, if I have new positive and negative wires running from the rear door speaker to the hatch speaker, will that work or is there something to the wiring structure that wouldn't allow this to work?

 

[shawn474]

Final verdict: after running a new negative wire to the rear door passenger speaker, it solved that problem. However, the rear passenger hatch speaker was still not working. Running the negative wire to the hatch didn't fix that issue. So I spliced the positive and negative wires at the rear passenger door speaker and ran new wires from there to the rear hatch........through the kick plates, up through the headliner, through the antenna boot and down through the hatch door frame to the speaker. Hooked those up to the existing speaker and both the rear passenger door and rear passenger hatch speaker work now. Not sure if this was the most effective or efficient way to fix the problem, but it does work and works well. Stripping the interior and door panels and trying to run the wires through the door frames and especially the door/hatch rubber boots to keep everything clean and water tight was a royal pain in the a$$. But all in all, looking back on it, I am glad I did it. Little things like this tend to bother me and it would have been something I thought about a lot if it wasn't fixed. The only money I am out is $6 for a spool of 16 gauge wire from the auto parts store. WAYYYYYYYYYYYY better than having a shop troubleshoot at a cost nearing $100/hour.