heyrandy

When I started the car a couple of weeks ago, I heard only a little bit of sound for the first 5 seconds then everything was normal.

Last week, I started the car and the same thing happened but the door speakers never came back on. I could hear the sub though. After a couple of days the door speakers came back on.

Now when I drove it today the dam door speakers didn't come on again (and banging on the HU doesn't help either)!

I haven't been able to take it into the dealer since I've been traveling during the week lately.

I'm pretty sure it's a loose connection somewhere - any ideas?

I did replace the fronts with Polk DX6s but I insulated the cuttout with duct tape pretty good. And they worked fine for the first 2 or 3 weeks (and intermittantly ever since). All of the door speakers are affected but not the sub. The dealer may try to blame it on my install so I probably won't volunteer that info if I have to take it in.



By the way, the sub sucks. What Edmunds calls "the piece de resistance" is really a piece of sh!t.

Southbound

heyrandy,
Sorry to hear that you are having trouble.

I remember that back a month ago when 03TLTYPES replaced his front door speakers with the POLK DX6s that he said he had the same grief. He had NO SOUND FROM ANY OF THE DOOR SPEAKERS. He said he did one mod at a time and had sound each time until he finally buttoned up the final drivers side door panel and then they ALL went out. I chatted back and forth with him about the matter and I'm still not really sure what the story was?

He kept talking about how he went back in and took his wires back off and re-taped them with electrical tape, etc. and things "JUST STARTED WORKING" again for him after he re-did all of his connections. He did talk about how everytime he opened up his door panels the wire had come loose from the speaker. While one loose wire wouldn't kill ALL four speakers, ONE SHORTED WIRE WOULD! The best information that I could get out of him was that his wiring splices were too long and got hung up on the window. Everytime he rolled the window down, it kept jerking the wire off of the speaker. Then the wiring terminal would short out in the bottom of the door frame and cut off ALL of the speakers. This was the only logical explanation that we could come up with for his problem?

I definitely know that you can operate the sytem with a speaker wire disconnected. I ran that way for weeks while I was searching for an easy replacement. I drove around with 3 speakers working while the passenger front door was disconnected. It sounds like the only GOOD thing about the stock head unit is that it is protected against a short circuit on one of the speaker lines. It must have a current limit foldback circuit that shuts the power amp stage down whenever there is a short on one of the lines. This is the only thing that would explain ALL FOUR speakers going out at once... while still allowing the head unit to be powered up and no fuses blown. THAT IS A GOOD THING TO HAVE HAPPEN... otherwise a shorted speaker wire would "smoke" the output transistors. and your amp would be toast! It would NOT come back by itself after that. It would no longer be intermittent after that... It would be dead! BUT if that happened and THE AMP ACTUALLY BLEW UP... The fuse or fuses would probably blow and you wouldn't have any power to the head unit at all.

You are describing the SAME thing that he experienced and you also replaced your front speakers. I HAVE HAD NO TROUBLE WHATSOEVER WITH MY POLK INSTALL! So it's not a case of the speakers causing some trouble to the amp or whatever. BUT IT DOES SOUND LIKE THE AMP IS BEING SHORTED OUT. You DON'T want to test that protection circuit indefinitely. There is still usually some driver stage that will be folding back the current and will run hotter than normal and eventually burn something up. If the speakers don't work, I would keep the head unit powered off! The other thing that I told him to check was the two fuses under the passengers side underdash fuse panel. There is a 6 or 7 amp fuse and a 20 amp fuse that both feed the head unit there. (look in the owners manual about fuses) The 7amp fuse probably just powers up the logic circuits, display panel and remote wire,etc. while the 20amp fuse supplys current to the ENTIRE POWER AMP STAGE. He found that neither of these were blown in his case. Again, he just went in and rechecked his wiring and found a speaker wire laying in the bottom of the door frame. We can only assume that it was then shorting out on the metal. Although I don't see how that should have happened if insulated terminals were used? I CAN'T EMPHASIS THE NEED FOR INSULATING THE DOOR FRAME AND THE TERMINAL LUGS ENOUGH!!!!! He claimed that he used the POLK wires and spliced them into the factory wires. If so, I'm not sure how the insulated POLK wires could short out even if they did fall loose, because they had some nice clear insulation on them. It must have slid back or something? OR else he actually installed things differently than explained? OR else the splice itself wasn't insulated well enough and it worked its way into shorting to ground, or across the two wires?

More thoughts to follow... Southbound

Southbound

Anyway, in a case like this... I ALWAYS fall back to my first rule of maintenance. WHO DID WHAT LAST?!?

How long have you had the car? If you showed no signs of this problem BEFORE the POLK UPGRADE... then I'd be 99% sure that you've just identified the source of your problem. Something is going on with the wiring inside the door frame! The clearance between the POLK speaker terminals and the door frame cutout are VERY CLOSE! That is why I emphasized over and over to make sure that you have ALL of the POLK terminals bent up so that they couldn't hit the door frame. This ESPECIALLY includes the "SIDE TERMINAL" on the terminal strip mounted on the back of the POLKS where the crossover cap is soldered! In my install, I unsoldered the crossover cap from this terminal and CUT IT OFF! I then resoldered the crossover cap back to the center of the terminal where the rivet would be. I found that this "SIDE TERMINAL" came too close for comfort for me to risk it from working its way through the insulating duct tape and finally shorting out on the door frame. There's also another small terminal lug that the other side of the crossover cap solders to that needs to be bent up out of the way along with the other lugs that the speaker wires connect to.

Again, If you haven't experienced any intermittent problems BEFORE the POLK UPGRADE... and IF YOU DID NOT GO TO THESE EXTRA STEPS TO MAKE ABSOLUTELY SURE THAT YOU HAD ADEQUATE CLEARANCE BETWEEN THE DOOR FRAME AND "ANY" OF THE SPEAKER TERMINALS... Then I'd go back inside the door panels and check this out!!! You could also have an actual splice that is not insulated well enough and has worked its way into intermittently touching the door frame or across the two wires themselves? If you've got long spliced wires involved, and if they weren't tied back sufficiently to the inside of the door frame, then everytime you roll the window up and down, they could be pulled around a bit and be the cause of the intermittent short. THERE IS ONLY 1/4 INCH OF CLEARANCE BEHIND THE MAGNET BEFORE THE WINDOW GOES BY!!! So while the speaker lugs need to be bent UP so that they don't touch the door frame... the speaker wires need to be bent DOWN so that they don't get snagged by the window! YOU DON'T WANT ANYTHING TO PROTRUDE BEHIND THE MAGNET! If you had a wire being pulled completely loose from the speaker by the window... Then you would experience an intermittent loss of sound from that one speaker and then an intermittent loss of ALL speakers once the wire shorted out. When the speakers start to work, are you sure THEY ALL COME BACK ON? If only three of them come back on, then you've got a loose wire rattling around in the door frame that occasionally shorts out on the metal. If ALL FOUR speakers do indeed come back on when it begins to work. Then you've got a short from one of the speaker terminals gouging itself through the duct tape and through the paint and intermittently shorting the amplifier out. If this is the case, it's more than likely one of the "other" terminals on the back of the speaker as opposed to the ones that the speaker wire is actually attached to. The speaker wire lug should be insulated and would be pretty hard to cut itself through the duct tape, etc. BUT one of those other lugs could be doing that? OR you could have an intermittent short happening at the splice point itself if it wasn't done smoothly and correctly. If you soldered the splice, sometimes there are some "SHARP BURRS" on the wire that will cut their way through the shrink tubing... especially if you tied the two spliced wires together tightly? You could have a short between the two wires as opposed to one wire to ground in this case... If you put SEVERAL layers of shrink or electrical tape around EACH wire before wrapping them together, then I doubt this is a problem area. But if you only put ONE layer of shrink around each wire, it can sometimes chaff itself though, especially if you have a solder burr? I can't remember if you were the one who said you soldered your splices or not? If so, I'd check this area out thoroughly as well!

ANYBODY ELSE WHO HAS INSTALLED THESE POLKS... please pay extra attention to ALL of these details of the installation. One of the unused speaker terminal lugs mounted on the back of the speaker could cut its way through the duct tape and cause an intermittent short over time, if you don't properly move them sufficiently out of the way... or better yet... CUT THEM OFF AND RESOLDER THE CROSSOVER CAP BACK TO THE CENTER OF THE LUG INSTEAD OF LETTING IT HANG OUT ON THE OUTSIDE OF THE SPEAKER... I found that particular side terminal way too close for comfort IMHO! Also, INSULATE YOUR SPLICES WELL!!! and KEEP THE WIRE LEADS SHORT AND TIED BACK AWAY FROM THE WINDOW!!!

I would check this out before you take it into the dealer... If they have to take your door panels off to look for a shorted connector, and find that you have swapped out the speakers and have cut off the factory connector, etc. Who knows if they would still cover it under warranty???? And I'm sure they don't work cheap!!! So cover your tracks and make sure that it's not something related to a poor install of the POLKS before getting burnt by the dealer... With the small door hole cutout and the spacer involved... IT'S REALLY HARD TO ACTUALLY SEE HOW MUCH TERMINAL CLEARANCE TRULY EXISTS.

To anybody out there who has done this mod or who is thinking about doing this mod...YOU CAN'T BE TOO CAREFUL! TRIPLE CHECK YOUR WORK! This would be true for ANY speaker replacement mod work.

If you CAN ACTUALLY remember this problem occurring BEFORE the POLK UPGRADE... then all of these theories may not be valid and you've got some other kind of weird problem that only the dealer can fix.... BUT MY GUESS IS THAT YOU'VE GOT AN INTERMITTENT SHORT ON ONE OF THESE POLKS...

First rule of maintenance... When a problem occurs... "Who just did what last?" If you didn't have this problem before... then what you just did last, was rewire your doors... I'd recheck them out if it were me...

GOOD LUCK!
Southbound

heyrandy

Thanks Southbound

Its an '03 TLS. I had the car less than 2 weeks before I replaced the speakers so I don't have much history pre-modified. Actually I have more history with it after mods when it worked fine.

I'm with you on what I did last but I don't think that I screwed anything up as it's not acting like a loose wire. Railroad tracks, window up/down, etc. don't seem to affect it. It will be working fine, I turn off the car, then get back in 15 minutes later and it doesn't work.

I also used 3 layers of duct tape at the lower part of the cutout. I'm thinking intermittant power to the Bose eq box or something. I'll try the fuse idea you gave me. Thanks.

heyrandy

I checked the fuses but only saw the 20 amp one labeled radio/accessory socket. Do you know what the other one is called? The manual mentions the "radio fuse" when talking about resetting the codes.

If there is only one fuse then the HE or sub wouldn't work.

Southbound

heyrandy,
What a bummer!

I doubt that you have a blown fuse, because that just wouldn't be intermittent. Unless it were a defective fuse that somehow "makes and breaks"?

In any case, I rechecked the system schematic drawing that I have... and there is one fuse in the DRIVERS side fuse panel (FUSE #8, 7.5amp, ACC RELAY, NAVIGATION) There is a second fuse in the passengers side fuse panel (FUSE #9, 20amp, ACC Radio). The relay contacts of the first ACC relay (driver's side relay #8) feed the 12volts through the other 20amp fuse (passengers side relay #9) to the actual MAIN STEREO POWER SUPPLY. It also feeds power to the navigation unit and onto another page of the schematic that I don't have.

Sorry when I told you last night that BOTH fuses were on the passengers side. There is one on each side. But if the first 7.5amp relay fuse were blown, I don't think you would have any head power display AT ALL, etc. If its relay contacts are bad however and somehow intermittent, then maybe the stereo outputs would die and the head unit would somehow stay up? BUT I don't see how the sub would play because its line level signal goes through the head unit??? It's hard to see from the partial schematic just what different circuits the 7.5amp fuse and the 20 amp fuse actually feed. A BAD FUSE SEEMS IFFY??? A bad relay???? still seems IFFY from what I see. I could be wrong, but it looks like the relay contacts fed from the 20amp radio fuse feed more than just the door speakers amp. To have your problem, they would have to do just that. They would have to only feed the four door speaker output stages and nothing else. OR else you would also lose the display panel, and the sub lineout signal. I do see that the subamp gets its power from the radio remote switch. Not sure which fuse the subamp gets its power from. It might be a third fuse???? But still the line input to it would go dead if you lost the 20amp fuse circuit that you already checked... But then you only checked the 20amp fuse. After the 12volts goes through this fuse it goes through a relay controlled by the other 7.5amp fuse. SO again MAYBE???? a bad relay contact could be causing your problem. NOT ENOUGH INFO here on this schematic to definitely troubleshoot from.

SORRY...

SO, Again, even though you think everything is cool with your install, the only thing I could think to do would be to go back in and make sure. Three layers of duct tape should keep unsused terminals from shorting through it. How often does the problem present itself? Is it broken more than its fixed? If so, take the door panels off and simply pull the POLKS out and tape up all of the wires REALLY GOOD. The rear speaker should still work then. IF they don't, THEN YOU DO HAVE SOMETHING FUNKY FROM THE FACTORY! If everything behaves itself for a week or so... then you've got to think its the POLK install again. Then redo the install and cutoff the unused terminals that I talked about in my long post above. Inspect the duct tape real close, the sharp unused terminals could have been rubbing and cut through it? If the rears still won't play with the POLKS removed and the wiring carefully all insulated up... then You've got some dealer grief to deal with. In that case, you might want to reinstall the stock speakers before you take it into the dealer. although the connections would be far from stock, and the basket would be cut off, etc.

What a bummer! The REAL bummer is that you had to go in and mess with the stock system at all! I bought a new 02 at the beginning of March and I could only take the stock system for a couple of weeks before I had to do something. THE STOCK SYSTEM SUCKS! That is when I stumbled onto the POLKS DX6s. They do changeout the easiest of any I could find and they do sound better than stock... so I went with them and so far so good. NO PROBLEMS! I was REAL careful to make sure that nothing was close to hitting or cutting anything...

I don't know what else to tell you

Let us know what you find out...

GOOD LUCK! Southbound

heyrandy

Southbound was right. I had a short.

A 1/8" long piece of excess wire from where the capacitor is soldered to the + terminal was sticking thru 3 layers of duct tape and grounding out thru the door panel!

Wow, talk about tight and unforgiving clearances :yack:

I'm surprized that the amp is still OK.

I would have felt pretty stupid at the dealer if I had brought it in. Although I could have told the service manager that if they would have spent a few extra bucks upgrading the POS Blows, we wouldn't be having this conversation now.


Anyway, while I was at it I trimmed the basket to the edge of the weather striping. After trimming it, you can easily see that there isn't much airspace between the speaker and the basket.

I also caulked the basket to the door for a good seal.


Thanks again Southbound! I now have my tunes back

Southbound

heyrandy, Thanks for the good news report!

Yeah, I sorta felt that just had to be the deal.

The ONLY GOOD news about the stock head unit/amp is that it is eveidently shortcircuit proof You still don't want to test that type of thing too often though.

While the POLK DX6 speakers are an EXACT fit, they do have ONE TERMINAL HANGING OUT TO THE SIDE WHERE THE CROSSOVER CAP IS SOLDERED!!!! That terminal does want to hit the bottom side of the door hole cutout

I'LL SAY IT AGAIN!!!!! ANYBODY OUT THERE DOING THIS INSTALL, BE CAREFUL OF THAT ISSUE!!!

In my install, I unsoldered the cap and CUT OFF the side terminal. Then I resoldered the cap back to the center of the terminal post. That way it is totally out of the way! If you're not into soldering, you can bend it out of the way the best that you can... just be careful NOT to stress the lead on the cap and pull it apart. Since the crossover cap is glued down to the speaker, it won't give. So if you bend too much on that side terminal you could end up pulling the lead out of the inside of the cap. In that case you would have no output from the tweeter... There's ALWAYS something to watch out for!

It's also a LOT easier to see your terminal clearances once you have cut the basket completely off. DAMN, that's a small door hole cutout for a 6-1/2 inch speaker! Other speakers are even harder to mount... BE CAREFUL OUT THERE EVERYBODY!

Glad you're back with tunes! Southbound

heyrandy

Southbound -

You mentioned wanting to know about CA gas. Send me an email at my hotmail account to learn any more: kc_flyer@hotmail.com

My company (www.stratco.com) has alkylation units at most of the LA refineries:

Chevron - El Segundo
BP (previously Arco) Carson
Phillips (pre. Tosco - Unocal) Wilmington
Shell (pre. Equilon - Texaco) Wilmington

Alkylate is predominantly isooctane which has RON and MON of 100. It's the primary ingredient of aviation gasoline.

Alkylate is said to be the perfect clean-burning gasoline blending component since it's:

100% paraffinic (as opposed to olefinic, aromatic, or napthenic which are all more reactive and toxic)
Almost zero sulfur (catalytic converter poison)
It has very low vapor pressure which means less will end up in the air
Same stuff as odorless mineral spirits
Doesn't contaminate groundwater like MTBE or Ethanol
California uses the highest percentage of alkylate anywhere in the world for it's clean-burn qualities
Premium grades have more than regular

Southbound

Heyrandy,
Ok, Now YOU'RE talking Greek to me!

What kind of gas do YOU burn? I'm also a licensed pilot and used to know guys who put the 100 octane LL in their hi performance GTOS back in the seventies. I know that it's supposed to be much better refined fuel with less contaminates, etc. i.e. more dependable. At least that's what they taught us in flight school. I HATE it when the Lycoming carb clogs up and sputters!

I have Chevron and Unocal cards that I use. Which is better, if either?

Does one brand of gas keep the intake valve deposits cleaner than the other, etc.? I'd like to avoid that "rough idle" problem that usually develops after many thousands of miles. But the longer we can go before cleaning the injectors, etc., the better.

That just brought up another question that I have always wondered about... Do any of these off the shelf fuel additives/injector cleaners REALLY do any good? Or are they just a hyped up waste of money? Sounds like YOU'RE THE MAN when it comes to this subject. I know it's off topic for the audio forum, but I noticed that nobody else ever responded to your help request on this particular thread, and not that many people actually seemed to read it... So maybe we won't get thrown off the board for talking just a LITTLE about it here...

Thanks for the info!
Southbound

heyrandy

Hey SB -

Sorry to take so long to get back to you. I've taken a little break from the internet for the past couple of weeks to get things done around the house.

Anyway, about LA refiners:

They have the tightest gasoline specs in the world which limit bad actors like olefins (more reactive - hence more likely to form gums), aromatics (toxic and PNAs, Poly Nuclear Aromatics, tend to form gums), and heavy ends (high boiling point material which can leave residue behind).

That said, you live in a severe ozone non-attainment area and the federales mandate that your gas contains oxygenates (MTBE or ethanol) so that 2 wt% of your gas is oxygen. Oxygen helps cars that don't have O2 sensors burn leaner but don't do squat for our newer cars except cause crappier mileage (no energy content in oxygen) and possible fuel system troubles.

Given the choice between MTBE and ethanol, I would choose MTBE since it can't carry nearly as much water (and other crap) into your car. As an example, if you took 10 gallons of non-oxygenated gas and added a cup of water, the water would sit on the bottom. If you then added a gallon of ethanol, the water would mix into solution. This is why pipeline operators aren't allowed to ship gasoline with ethanol thru pipelines - they typically splash blend at the terminals (gas + ETOH added together into tank truck). MTBE doesn't have this great of a cosolvency effect so it can be sent thru pipelines without picking up other crap.

Since MTBE gets into the drinking water supply thru leaky gas station storage tanks, CA has banned MTBE (although this is has been delayed a year to the end of '03). Even so, Phillips (Unocal) is now only using ethanol and Chevron and Arco (BP) plan to stop using MTBE at the end of this year (lawsuits for leaking filling stations get expensive).

Even though the Auto-Oil coalition and CARB (Cal Air Resource Board) all agree that oxygenates don't do squat for 90% of the cars on the road (and actually cause engines to emit more NOx - smog precursor), it literally takes an act of congress to overturn the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 that apply to LA. And they haven't so you're stuck with 2 wt% O2 and ethanol for the foreseeable future.

About additives, that's where all of the magic and marketing take place. I live in KC which has no refiners left. We get most of our gas from pipelines shipping from the Gulf Coast to Chicago. So if we buy Texaco gas, it most likely was not made at a Texaco (Equilon or Motiva) refinery. The Texaco jobber will buy whatever is comming down the pipeline as long as it meets his specs. However, they supposedly splash blend their additives at the terminal to make it "System 3" or whatever the current marketing slogan is.

All of that said, I buy whatever major brand is more convenient or priced lower. Sometimes I even buy Sam's Club gas since it's usually 10-15 cents lower. Of course I only buy premium for my TL-S.

I haven't had rough running problems with either of my last 2 jap cars which my wife and I bought new and kept for 180k+ miles each. I did add Chevron's Techron fuel injector cleaner in my wife's Integra before changing the spark plugs. But I didn't really notice any difference since I didn't have clogged injectors.

I think the most import thing we can do for our cars is change the oil regularly and/or use synthetic oil and a good filter. I changed at 3000 miles for the first 100k and then at 4000 miles after that for those 2 cars. This seems to me to be the best thing that you can do to keep compression (wear) even between cylinders which is a major cause of rough running.

Since the TL-S specifies 5W-20, I'll use a synthetic and probably go a little longer between changes (5-6k). 5W-20 is very light and more prone to breakdown than heavier oils. Synthetics don't coke up, shear, and boil off as easy as conventional oils do. Plus they don't rely nearly as much on the spring-shaped molecules called viscosity improvers. These additives are added to a lightweight conventional oil. When cold the "spring" contracts and doesn't add much viscosity. When hot, the "spring" stretches out and adds viscosity. However, these "springs" tend to shear over time so your 5W-20 may end up being closer to 0W-10 at the end of the cycle.

03TLTYPES

I read the first post and didnt want to read all the other LONG A$$ posts so if your question was already answered then disregard this....

When I installed the DX-6's they worked fine then sometimes when I would slam my door they would stop working and only the sub would work. I'm pretty sure that the something was hitting the inside of the door causeing the speakers to short out....All I did is take it apart and Duct Tape EVERYTHING and put it back together and I have not had any problems since. Hope this helps.

broly

see my post here

tldr: it's a short.