TGK111

Everyone seems to be having problems with the door speakers. Anyone experiencing the same recurring problem with the sub/rear deck? Same deal as many of you have said; took the car back to them the day after I picked it up, they reinsulated the deck and the problem is still there, 2 months later. Extremely annoying on a brand new car and in a stereo system that is so touted. Anyway, has anyone had the problem and been able to get it successfully fixed?

dwest1023

This is what you HAVE to do to solve the sub problem. Get some Dynamat or equivalent and have your dealer line the rear shelf with it. This is what I did and it mostly took care of the problem. The sub moves a lot of air and is a pump. The dyanmat will dampen the shelf to eliminate the rattle. Unless you do this you will have to learn to live with the rattle.

ESHBG

Well the dealership will have my car for almost 2 days now fixing the bad speakers. The service tech called me today because he said that one of the new speakers they ordered was bad and they needed to order another...so things may not be looking good long-term, and not the news I really wanted to hear...

I love the car so far overall but the sound system has been one of the biggest negatives. Extremely annoying considering the added cost of the Tech package.

TGK111

Thanks for the reply. The dealer supposedly already did reinsulate the deck, to no success. It's going in for its first service in a couple of weeks and I'm going to bring it back up. Love the car, but a very annoying design oversight here. I had an 08 before and that one rattled too.

C4n3s

UPDATE:

got my new front panel speakers, they sound great, but the mechanic at the stealer-ship said that they're the exact same speakers, not any "updated" or "better" ones as someone posted earlier.

uh oh....so now that my front speakers are working properly, I can hear a tiny rattle from my back ones....damn....it's not too bad so I'll let them be until they sound as bad as my front ones did.


if these blow again, I think I'm gonna go get premium/name-brand speakers with some nasty wattage


any thoughts?

ESHBG

Well don't worry, and in no time they'll be bad 'cause that's how my rear ones were: a tiny buzzy/rattling sound here and there to suddenly un-listenable.

FYI the dealership STILL has my car...tomorrow is day 3...

C4n3s

mine did it same day. a dealership with your car for 3 days for speakers? something is wrong bro.

so are we both in the market for narsty-good speakers ?

does anyone have any recommendations for good speakers? I see like a pair of infinitys on bestbuy for 180 for a pair putting out 330W. How much use am I gonna get from the 330W?

Does any1 know the wattage that the stock amp is putting out?

shawkins5

Having the same problme here in my 2009 Acura TL. I have brought it in several times and it keeps happening again and again. I called today to make another appointment to bring the vehicle in. It helps with everyone posting this issue to see there really is a problem here Acura needs to fix. I'd happily pay for upgraded speakers at this point. It has not been fun bringing it in and the first dealer I brought it to for service tore up the plastic around the back speakers with a screwdriver. Luckily the second dealer I brought it into replaced that whole back panel. I will see when I bring my car in what they have to tell me this time.

ESHBG

Well I FINALLY got my car back, and everything is sounding great...for now. The dealership changed my oil for free for my troubles and I had the loaner to drive so it's not like I was inconvenienced all that much, so I am cool with it all...

...now here's to hoping that this never, ever happens again!

jangkai

I really hope that will be the case too

wmahmud

all speakers rattle in my car too now ...its the design..the sound system is great..but they didn't think of what it would do to the speakers and interior after a while

i am hesitant to take my car in - too much ripping apart of stuff for my liking..

thurley42

My front right blew this weekend...I'm really torn over the path I'll take from here. I'm not really worried about the dealership R&R the speaker, but it seems from this thread, that it is a high probability it will happen again.

So my other choice is to take it to a shop and have some higher quality speakers put in, but then I assume the liability of letting someone who probably hasn't taken one of these doors apart mess with my car....

blah!

Kingmeow

Can you work a deal out with your dealer in that they will fix it under warranty but you'll supply your own speakers? They supply the labor, your supply the part. Win-win?

chaiwala

Dealers are not authorized to do any after market work for two reasons, one for liability and two, the labor time that the dealership puts in for warranty work comes out of corporate Acura's(Honda's) account.

ESHBG

Bad news everyone: BOTH of my rear door speakers started buzzing and rattling again. It started suddenly w/ the right one, and now the left is doing it also as of my ride home from work. When I got home I listened closely and tested various sources and I am SOOOO disappointed and not looking fwd to the hassle again, and this is happening to someone who never plays the system overly loud either...I'd hate to think what will happen to those that do. If they need to be replaced, it will be a total of 7 sound system issues/replacements since I bought the car in Feb...inexcusable...

I am very, VERY disgusted w/ this sound system (and not to mention that I paid extra w/ the Tech package for this headache!) and due to my issues thus far and what I have been reading from other TSX owners, TL and now a reported MDX case, I may not be purchasing another Acura when it is time for my next car if this nonsense continues...

I am now SERIOUSLY debating if I am going to deal w/ this again via Acura or just put in aftermarkets and be done with this all forever...

Kingmeow

Could it be a design flaw on how they are mounted and not the speaker themselves? Shocks/vibration not isolated enough that it would eventually break the voice coil?

ESHBG

I am definitely wondering if there is more to this than just poor speaker design, because how can so many speakers in various Acura models be bad?!? The way I would imagine things would go down is Acura would go back to Panasonic (I think that is who they are getting these speakers from) and let them know how many defective ones they have come across, and I would imagine the problem would've been corrected by now...this has been going on for over a year now, and more than enough time for a correction to be made by the speaker manufacturer (and going one step further, for Acura to stop tolerating a crappy product from a supplier).

I also wonder if the amp is kicking out too many watts at peak or something?

Well I played around w/ things for a bit more and it seemed to be better or worse depending on the source, the song, etc...sometimes and very suddenly it sounded like everything was totally fine again and then a song change (even one w/ less bass) or a switch to another source and it would suddenly pop back up again. Then it started doing this other crazy crap where the right would sound horrible and the left would be fine, than they both started again...IMO there has to be more than meets the eye here than faulty speakers...

It seems like some TL owners are now having the same issue too RE: different behaviors depending on the source:

https://acurazine.com/forums/4g-tl-audio-bluetooth-electronics-navigation-294/driver-side-speaker-makes-noise-749118/

I am really starting to "hate" my car. Why am I having to be outside on a cool and rainy night playing these games with a luxury car, and one that has been looked at (and had speakers replaced) so many times already?!?

thurley42

man....I think i'm just gonna take my chances with aftermarket door speakers...

also...I went to Crutchfield and they haven't outfitted the TL yet...we have 4.5's in the door correct?

Kingmeow

ESHBG, what you describe is typical of a defective/broken voice coil in a speaker. It can also be due to a tear on the cone but I'm assuming now a days that's made out of poly and not paper. If there's enough shock/vibration to tear poly it would destroy the rest of the car.

Like you said, there's something more to this than meets the eye. Knock on wood, mine seems to be fine.

dwest1023

The bad sound you are hearing is from the voice coil. When you have this problem it will be most noticeable with AM with voice. Not sure, but I believe the voice coil is riding on the magnet when you hear the distortion. Most often this is caused by the voice coil exceeding its travel. Once this happens it will know longer ride suspended over the magnet like it should. I suspect that because we get mid bass from the front speakers that too much of it causes the problem along with slamming the doors on the car.I bet if you were gentle closing the doors I believe we might not see the problem. It always seems to be the passenger door that has the most problem. Who is more careful closing the door, the driver or the passenger? That's my theory. I have been in electronics for 36 years.

ESHBG

Thanks for the feedback, Kingmeow and dwest1023! It was consistently bad on my entire ride home from work today and it sounds like the speakers are done for good now. I am dreading going back to the dealership again (if you got a chance to read my past posts, they ended up having the car for 3 days) but hey, you do what you gotta do *sigh*

A part of me does want to go aftermarket at this point but a part of me wants to keep the heat on Acura/the dealership because I paid the money, I want it all to work RIGHT and why should I dip into my own pockets for all of this?!?

And at what point is Acura going to step up to the plate and publicly acknowledge this? From what I have been told, there is still no official TSB and merely a sly, "Shh, just go ahead and replace it," type of thing going on.

jrg64

Beet-
I've got an 09 TL Tech and the sub has started to rattle and the front doors sound like crap. My last car was a 300c with the Boston system, those speakers blew up and i replaced them with aftermarket BA's and never had a problem after that. I am trying to decide between upgrading to BA, JL or MBQ, with some fatmat thrown in, i just hate the thought of tearing the insides apart.

Kingmeow

No problem. I hear ya' on the bringing it to the dealer. Yeah, they take care of you by replacing the speaker. Yeah, they offer you a loaner. Yeah, they "solve" the problem. But in the end if you add up all your time of bringing it back and forth, I can bet it could be a day or two or more.

That's the part they can't replace - your time. But I often say to myself, hey, part of the purchase price is their warranty so why shouldn't I use it? I already paid for it! In fact I even bought an extended warranty because of the mileage I put on the car but stil, time is time. And it's your time!

Good luck man and keep us posted! We may all eventually be in the same boat.

skyfox23

I owned an RDX that had a faulty amplifier, it drained the battery...would not shut off when car and or stereo was off...has anyone thought it may be the amp not the speakers??? Amp may be clipping the speakers????
Putting the speakers into distortion at any volume LOUD or not????

ESHBG

Yes, and I mentioned it earlier:

I also wonder if the amp is kicking out too many watts at peak or something?

And thanks for showing me now that pretty much every single model in the Acura line up has a crappy stereo system. Grrr...

EXACTLY! My dealership is a little out of the way and in the Philly rush hour traffic it's a nightmare, and I can easily kill 30-45+ min. just getting there so round trip you are talking an easy hour+ of my time...and that's just the one trip and not counting my time when I have to go back to pick up my car. Exactly like you said yes, it's great there is a warranty and all of that but who the hell expects this kind of crap with this caliber of a vehicle?!? One doesn't shell out the extra $ to constantly have to deal with this sort of thing...

And what burns me up about this all is that I have absolutely no guarantee that it won't happen again...case in point, what I am going through now. I *KNEW* it was a bad omen when the dealership called to tell me that the new speaker they ordered to replace my one blown speaker was faulty right out of the box, requiring a re-order.

Thanks, Kingmeow, and I will keep you posted while simultaneously keeping my fingers crossed that none of you have this same headache LOL

jangkai

ESHBG: just curious, what dealership are you going to? Mine is metro acura

Kingmeow

Wait! If that's the case then it's the speakers and not anything else with the design of the mounting, etc.

ESHBG

Well that's assuming what I was being told was correct and not just a way to explain why you had my car for 3 days over speakers. But let's give them the benefit of the doubt and say that they were being honest, and my thought process goes to it still could be a design or amp issue: they hook it up, pump the stereo and play around with it for a while to test things out, etc., and then POP, there we go again...

jwjang86, in this case I don't like to give free publicity so I'll shoot you a PM then...

dwest1023

No the amp is not clipping at moderate vol. Now if you are increasing the bass, that could do it. I still believe the hard closing of doors is contributing to the problem. Only the passenger door speaker in my car has been replaced and it was bad with I got the car. I figured my car was test driven because the system had the bass up to max.

ESHBG

Mine was the driver's side door first, and it was bad and had to be replaced before I could even drive the car off of the lot. Then the passenger side, and then both rear doors so I seem to be having equal problems between driver and passenger side. I think that the doors being closed could be a good theory, but in my case my passenger side doors rarely get used, especially the rear passenger side door.

My bass is not set high at all and for the longest time it was actually -1.

Kingmeow

I just noticed that you have the Tech. (Too lazy to re-read everything ) But I'm wondering if the non-Techs have these problems???

ESHBG

I've heard of just a few non-techs having the issue, but it seemed to be VERY few and far between. Of course via process of elimination they can't have it as much as we do, as they are missing 2 back speakers and the wattage is lower.

God, I can't wait to get these speakers replaced and they sound absolutely HORRIBLE now! In a way I am kind of glad they sound so disgusting now, as the dealership will have to deal with it yet again and maybe, just maybe Acura will get on the ball here with this. Hey, I am just trying to look at this as positively as I can LOL

Sugi

I am getting uncommanded noise coming from the Driver's side front tweeter. 1 Didn't think it was possible to blow a tweeter. 2. It would seem that I am the only one reporting this speaker blown.

I hope my other speakers stand up.

ESHBG

If you do a search in the 2nd gen TSX forum or on the internet, I am pretty sure I have read about a few reported cases of tweeters blowing.

With how crappy this whole system seems to be, I'd say it's a safe bet that everything is fair game!

theU

Looking at buying a 2010 TL SH-AWD w/ Tech package. Test drove one and the stereo sounded awesome for an OEM.

Reading this thread gives me some pause........

Has anyone with a 2010 had this problem, or just the '09s (yes, I do realize that even if the '10s have the problem it might not show up yet because they just came out)?

Have any of you with the "blown speaker" problem gotten a fix from the dealer and had it work for a long enough period of time to think it's going to be a permanent fix?

dwest1023

I had my passenger speaker replaced in July on my 09 and have had no further problems.

Kingmeow

No Tech, no problems. Knock on wood.

Sugi

They replaced my tweeter and driver's door speaker just to be sure they fixed the problem. Both are working now.

thurley42

Just got a call back from the dealership, they had to replace both rear door speakers and the passenger side front speaker.....man that's insane. Said they recieved one speaker that was bad on delivery....

Hopefully we got lucky and these are a good batch of speakers, but with having to replace 3 of them, I am not very optimistic.

ESHBG

Just a quick update that I had my two rear door speakers replaced and the system sounds AMAZING again! I learned to tune out the crappy speakers but damn, I didn't realize just how badly they were ruining things.

And not that I am 100% sold on this theory because of the noises the speakers produced, but the service dept. said that they are finding that it appears to be the way the speakers are mounted vs. the actual speakers themselves. But regardless, the whole experience has been very disappointing thus far and if I have to go through it again in the future, I won't be surprised at all sadly...