My DIY #1: Door Speaker Upgrade

So I completed installing the new speakers on both sides. Doing the passenger side door was more easier and did with much more confidence with the experience from the driver side door. Center console wire harness clip was a smaller one and had no issues removing it. Did not drill out the rivets because of the smaller mount came with the speakers. Ripped off the factory speaker and inserted the new one.

On this side, factory speaker wiring was pink and purple where pink is the Positive (+) and purple happens to be the negative (-). Just thought someone will find this useful.

Here are some pics from the job.

Above door panel photo shows the plastic clip locations. One clip came out as I was removing the panel as you can see one empty socket near the speaker grill. I put it back on before putting it back. However I think I missed/broke one clip on the driver side door as I feel a little play on it near the speaker side. I though to get a new clip and put it on that panel.

How it looked in the end 🔽

With this DIY and the experience and satisfaction I got, my brain gives me more ideas . Let's see and will update If I'm further doing related upgrades as DIYs.

Since the aftermarket bracket was smaller and no aligning holes in the door my choices were limited. Either drill new hole or custom bracket was the option as far as I understood. But both of them would include drilling the door metal which I was not comfortable doing. I remember @iRage mentioning in an old thread, if you drill the holes, you better put some primer to prevent rust issues. Also finding a custom bracket would be much harder here. So, I was left with just one option.

It was to put the factory mount back where it was, and fix the new speaker on top of that, which was the same suggested by a shop guy in the first place. Since I had no option after all this work I thought to just do it that way and be done with it. Now the factory speaker with mount was in my hand. I cut around and rip off the speaker and it's connections so I was left with the plastic mount. drilled and took out the socket which was there to insert new wire. I installed the plastic mount using 1/2" screws with bolt washers both side and a lock nut. Then installed the new speaker on that with the self tapping screws came with the speakers. This part was an easy task. Note that there was only about 1-2 mm meat in the mount to screws to go through. I just hope they will hold.

Factory speaker wiring came in blue and green where blue is the positive wire and green is the negative wire. I connected my wiring with factory wiring matching the colors above, soldered them to hold the connection better and put insulation tapes around each connection and covered everything again with insulation tapes to look cleaner.

As I was installing a one screw the thin plastic part broken in one place as you can see in above pic. Speaker is held by just 3 screws now, maybe it's ok but I thought of rotating the speaker a bit and put a screw there as well after installing the passenger side door speaker. Sound quality is great and I feel the improvement in one side. But I have to install the other one and feel the real difference. Going to do it tomorrow hopefully  

Although I couldn't do all sound proofing things due to these unexpected reasons I hope the job was done reasonably well. It's just a start and good experience, I got rear doors to attend too  (Later of course)

But for the other side there will be no drilling, just removing the factory speaker and insert new one. I hope it should be a one hour job. I will update here once it's done.

It was time to put into practice what I've been learning online for a couple of weeks.

Vitz KSP130 door panel is fixed by only 3 Philips screws and some clips as usual. One screw near the inner door handle and two screws visible once you remove the center console with a prying tool (Highlighted below image). That's the easiest part of this task. 

Then I had to detach the wire harness of the center console and this killed me. I tried so hard to pull it off by pressing the small plastic clip, tried every direction and position but failed. My fingers were aching so much, lost courage and gave up after about 2 hours of trying.

I was so frustrated and felt like going to a shop and get it done. Then again I thought there must be a way, giving up won't give anything for me. I needed this experience. So it was next weekend I could try again.

This time, after watching videos and reading more, I knew it could be harder but using a tool safely is an option. While pressing the small clip hard, I carefully pushed a plastic plug using a flathead screwdriver and I took time. Slowly it came out and I was so happy this time  

Then it was time to take out the panel carefully disconnecting clips and the 2 cables attached in the back for door lock and central lock. Just pull from the plastic piece carefully and you can safely pull it out after taking out the steel ball like part attached to the end of the cable and that part is mechanically attached to the black color plastic panel visible in the image. It's a simple task you will understand when you look at it.

So here it is.

As you can see they are riveted to the door using 3 rivets. I carefully drilled the rivets to remove them and I will put a video link where I got the inspiration for all this. It took some time but managed to finally remove the factory speaker.

To my surprise though, factory speaker was actually a 4 ohms one with a reasonably big magnet if the size of that matters but not as big as the new ones I bought. In many videos and forums, it was mentioned and shown that factory speakers with a tiny magnet in the back.

Screenshot from a video on YT ⬇️

Not that it matters now as I was going to put new good looking ones but when I got the aftermarket mount near the door to see if that fits without a fuss, the stars ⭐⭐⭐ started floating around my head. Yes it was much smaller and not aligning with the wholes available from the factory mount.

But these were all lessons and experiences. Thinking like that I planned my next steps which I will post in the next entry. Sorry if I'm extending the blog but with the available time, I have to continue in another blog post.  

PS: Here's the link for the video I mentioned earlier.

So, why I wanted to do this as a DIY?

Answer: Most shop people and technicians are very reluctant to replace or remove factory fitted speaker from the front doors...

I don't know what's the big deal with that is but they would rather keep them as it is and tend to put new ones in the rear. One guy told me that the most of sound is coming from the rear speakers once installed. He also said the bass sound will slightly be reduced if I were to remove factory speakers and put aftermarket ones. But that's not what I wanted. I wanted to put new ones in the front and maybe put older ones back if I feel like it or put new ones in the back too. Since I thought to do myself, I will first settle with 2 and later going to add rear speakers.

Another shop technician was fine with removing factory speakers and his method was to cut around and rip off the speaker and it's content from the unit (speaker and mount come as a one unit) while keeping the base intact. Then installing the new speaker onto that factory mount with screws. I was ok with that first but after watching a YouTube video of a clean and neat installation, I was like wow! how pretty is that? I wanted to do like that. I will put the link below. But we can't always meet our own expectations 🥺 You will see why.

So based on that video I started gathering required tools and accessories. I found speaker terminals (lugs) without the rubber cover, speaker wires and a wire stripper (it was indeed came in handy). Sadly, some accessories required for a clean install as in the video were not available to find. 

I already had prying tools and a soldering iron. I also tried to find some foam tape which was used to sound deadening/better quality output but not available. So instead I got a double tape , borrowed a drill from a friend and bought a 5/32" drill bit to drill out the rivets as indicated in a video.

The night before the intended operation date, I prepared the speaker wires using the tools I got. Since there was no rubber cover on lugs, I attached the wire and crimped using the  crimping section of the wire stripper and a pair of pliers. It would have been a nice job if I had a proper crimping tool. I put a solder dot just to be safe and covered using insulation tapes.

And I was ready to start the job next morning

To be continued...

I have always been a lover of music (though I never did music as a subject in my life). I listened and enjoyed music in many categories and languages since childhood. Also I wanted to listen to them in quality as I grew up. Hence, I have purchased many computer speakers, headphones, hand-free and later on decent earbuds and Bluetooth speakers from reputed brands whenever I could spare some money.

And suddenly it occurred to me that after owning a car for 6+ years, I haven't upgraded it's speakers for more quality and crisp sound. But I did wanted to like several years back and I couldn't do it at that time(I even posted a question in AL forum about the topic).

So I got the idea and started working on it. What size speakers my car got (Vitz 2016 KSP130), which brands and models would match, where to find, will they be original or fakes and so on...So far doing this myself as a DIY was not in my mind totally.

Most famous brands in this part of the world came up like Pioneer, Kenwood (not many options available), JBL and Infinity. I called several highly rated shops and visited them. Almost all recommended to go with Infinity or JBL. After my own product research, I was also leaning more towards Infinity rather than JBL or Pioneer (where all 3 were Vietnam made as said by them)

Infinity model available in every store was Infinity Reference series REF-6532ix 6-1/2" coaxial car speakers with 60W RMS and 180W Peak Power.

Price tag were 27,500/- to 28,500/- per pair with installing at no extra cost. JBL were also the same range and pioneer were cheaper than that.

I was ok with the price too as I believed Infinity would be the best choice but one attitude of every car audio guys here got me in to second thoughts that I may not get what I actually want by replacing speakers. I will explain in the next entry.

Couple of weeks ago I went to Pettah electronic market area and started asking around. I know you are now like, "what? pettah? Isn't that the last place someone would look to buy genuine or original products?". I also knew this but also know that pettah, whether you like to believe or not, is the place where more than 50% of Sri Lankan imports are coming to (from rice, sugar, Big onion to everything). There will be good products as well as items you should avoid.

Back to the speakers, in most of the shops in pettah, only China made pioneers were available. At a one shop, a guy asked me whether I want original products based on my preference of brand and he directed me to a another market. Only in this market, I could see JBL and Infinity brands. They also had other models of Infinity like Primus 6512is and more premium infinity Kappa Series (Can't remember the exact model) which no any other shop in Colombo had. As I checked closely, they were too Vietnam made and I'd swear that REF-6532ix were also the same as I saw in other car audio shops. Maybe I was wrong but my instincts said they were the same and went ahead with the buy.

After a little negotiation, I bought the same Infinity model for 20,000/- Rupees.

So, that ended the speaker hunt. By this time I had set my mind to do it myself and in the next entry, I will post why and how I planned to go about it.

Hope so far so good as this is my first blog as well as DIY 😀

To be continued.