[MyNeeds101]

All,

So my stereo has been down for about 8 months now in my coupe.. I know, way too long but I have been too busy to deal with it.

Last week, I turned the car on (with the door open) and immediately got static through the speakers for the first time since, so I turned on the head unit and the cd in it started playing music and then cut out again.

Just came back from an audio shop where they spent a number of hours looking to diagnose the issue. They told me that there was a ground fault problem with my door speakers but he did not want to take the door panel off due to his concern about the air bag and liability.

So I am wondering, if the harness is crimped or bad in the door, what is the process for removing the door panel? I believe I have to disconnect the neg on the battery and then what? Obviously I want to unplug that harness to see if I will then get sound in the other speakers. Also, does anyone know the part number for the harness in the door?

Any assistance is greatly appreciated.

 

[[email protected]]

What! Audio shops take off door panels every day! The airbag is in the door anyway, not the inner door panel, you would not touch the airbag to work on the speakers. Sounds like they just dont want to deal with it. Anyone who knows what they are doing should just unplug the speaker wires at the oem amp and test each speaker pair with a multimeter looking for a short. When the offending speaker wire is found you can troubleshoot from there as it is either a shorted speaker wire or a dead speaker causing the short. If all the speakers and wires test out OK then your problem might be upstream......in which case its either your head unit or amp that is dead.

 

[MyNeeds101]

Jeff... thanks for chiming in. He did pull the amp, test the wires but I guess because he did nto want to pull the door panel, he couldnt tell me if it was the wiring or the speaker or tweeter but said it was isolated to the driver side door.

What do you recommend I do on my end? Do I just remove the door panel and unplug the harness in there?

 

[[email protected]]

thats weird that he wouldnt pull the door panel.....its pretty easy on the E46, there are some DIYs here so just look around. Basically take the panel off and unplug the speakers, look around for any obvious damage to the wires, if the fault is a shorted speaker/voice coil then you should get sound when you unplug the offending speaker. If you get no change by unplugging the speakers then the issue is somewhere between the amp and the speaker so you might be best off just running a new speaker wire from the amp to the speaker, assuming you cant find any obvious wire damage in your door.