Re-using factory bose subwoofers
02-18-2017, 09:22 PM
#1
Re-using factory bose subwoofers
I hope someone can answer my question, but first a little back story.
I just purchased my 2005 base a few weeks ago. The previous owner had installed a single din kenwood head deck in it. I was not happy with the look or sound. I only had mids and highs, nothing was coming from the subs in the doors at all. I assumed he just didn't buy an adapter harness.
Fast forward to today. I purchased a new double din unit and the bose adapter. On further investigation I found out the rear speakers have been replaced by some kicker ones. The rest of the speakers in the car are the stock bose. When I removed the current head unit I was terrified by what I saw. There was tons of splicing, no harness was used at all. Further, when I went to the passenger footwell where the bose amp is, I found the factory bose harness all cut up and bypassed. Wanting to retain the bose speakers in the doors (I know, why would I want to do that?) I decided to splice the harness back together. Since the rear speakers were already replaced I just wired them directly to the head unit. I ran the front outputs from the head unit through the harness to the bose amp. Once I powered everything up I only had sound through the rear speakers.
I did some troubleshooting and can't find a cause for this. I confirmed that the bose amp has power with a meter and double checked all wiring, everything is correct. So at this point I am assuming the bose amp is dead. I am going to wire everything back the way the previous owner had it to restore sound to the front mids.
Now I am left thinking what I can do with the stock subs in the door. I am thinking that since the subs each have their own amp attached to the speaker, that I can cut one end off an rca cable, and run that from my sub pre-out on the head unit to the amp on the speaker. Does anyone see an issue with this or have any insight?
I just purchased my 2005 base a few weeks ago. The previous owner had installed a single din kenwood head deck in it. I was not happy with the look or sound. I only had mids and highs, nothing was coming from the subs in the doors at all. I assumed he just didn't buy an adapter harness.
Fast forward to today. I purchased a new double din unit and the bose adapter. On further investigation I found out the rear speakers have been replaced by some kicker ones. The rest of the speakers in the car are the stock bose. When I removed the current head unit I was terrified by what I saw. There was tons of splicing, no harness was used at all. Further, when I went to the passenger footwell where the bose amp is, I found the factory bose harness all cut up and bypassed. Wanting to retain the bose speakers in the doors (I know, why would I want to do that?) I decided to splice the harness back together. Since the rear speakers were already replaced I just wired them directly to the head unit. I ran the front outputs from the head unit through the harness to the bose amp. Once I powered everything up I only had sound through the rear speakers.
I did some troubleshooting and can't find a cause for this. I confirmed that the bose amp has power with a meter and double checked all wiring, everything is correct. So at this point I am assuming the bose amp is dead. I am going to wire everything back the way the previous owner had it to restore sound to the front mids.
Now I am left thinking what I can do with the stock subs in the door. I am thinking that since the subs each have their own amp attached to the speaker, that I can cut one end off an rca cable, and run that from my sub pre-out on the head unit to the amp on the speaker. Does anyone see an issue with this or have any insight?
02-19-2017, 01:31 PM
#2
Former Vendor
sounds to me like someone really messed with your car.
I would just drop the idea of trying to retain it and add an amp sub and some components and do it all the best way.
Your going to have to figure out all thier mess with wiring to return it all to stock
then with correct harness you should be able to reuse the stock door subs.
You just have to ask your self is it worth all the time to maybe try and fix someone else garbage or just go with something that works and will sound much better
and
no you cant do that with the stock subs
I would just drop the idea of trying to retain it and add an amp sub and some components and do it all the best way.
Your going to have to figure out all thier mess with wiring to return it all to stock
then with correct harness you should be able to reuse the stock door subs.
You just have to ask your self is it worth all the time to maybe try and fix someone else garbage or just go with something that works and will sound much better
and
no you cant do that with the stock subs
02-19-2017, 04:36 PM
#3
Unfortunately due to my work schedule, I don't really have time to put a whole system in right now. Though in retrospect, the amount of time I spent on this, I probably could have. Anyway, I just ran the speakers directly back to the head unit. And I was able to get the stock subs working by the method above.