A follow-up ....
My Kicker speakers arrived today and I installed them tonight. I'd say that if you're on a budget, you could probably just replace the front 2 in the doors and you'll be really pleased with the improvement in sound. But doing all 4 is even better.
You'll need a couple of Torx drivers to get the speakers swapped, a T-15 and a T-20. The plastic speaker covers on the door panels pop off, but they're on pretty tight. I used a putty knife to get under a section and pry it up, and then worked my way around, popping the rest off. (A trim removal tool would probably be best, but I didn't own one.)
Once the original speaker is exposed, you'll find it's screwed in place with 2 silver and 2 black screws. The black screws are much longer and a little thinner than the silver ones. (These are the ones you'll use a T-15 Torx driver on.) The silver ones take the T-20 size. (At first, I tried an allen wrench that I believe was a 1/8" size, but it didn't fit well and was a struggle. I tried all sorts of other sizes, metric and standard, and none of my other allen keys fit any better, so I'd say don't bother going that route!)
Then you simply unsnap the plastic wiring harness from the speaker and re-attach it to the Kicker upgraded speaker. It'll fit perfectly where the original speaker went. Put the bolts back in the same holes they came out of and snap the plastic cover back on and you're done!
I was amazed at the improvement in sound quality with these! As someone else said, the bass is WAY superior, but the treble is "cleaner" too. You can tell the Kicker speakers are much heavier than the stock ones and have bigger magnets, and you're going from a single paper cone to polypropylene and a separate dome tweeter mounted on top. I'm only using the basic AM/FM stereo with single CD player (no MP3) -- but these speakers make it sound like I'm running a small power amp or better head unit.
This is the best improvement I ever remember getting when upgrading door speakers in a vehicle without changing out a factory head unit first!
Hey,
I have been looking at 4, 6x9 Kicker Speakers for my front and back speakers, they are sold by mopar and also on justforjeeps.com . Has anyone installed these or bought them? And if so was it worth the money? On justforjeeps.com it says that it is made for the patriot and can be installed without having to have a harness or anything like that. Any information leading me up to a buy and sucsessful install would be greatly appreciated.
:rockon:
