Mercedes-Benz Forum banner

How do I remove the rear deck speaker grilles?

19K views 15 replies 5 participants last post by  superslimer 
#1 ·
I am gutting the stock stereo, and the 4" rear door speakers aren't going to cut it, so I want to pull out the stock subwoofers in the rear deck and replace them with 5.25" speakers. Anyone know how to get at the rear speakers and remove them?

James
94 C220
95 525it
 
#2 ·
I've said this many times and I still believe it's true. The rear decks are a pain in the ass to get out. You seriously are better off leaving them in there and disabling them. The reason I say this is because if you are going to have even 1 sub in the trunk, you won't get anything in the way of added sound out of the rear decks, no matter what you put in there. I would leave them and concentrate on getting really good front door speakers, dash tweeters (ideally components), rear door speakers, and a good sub(s).
 
#3 ·
I definitely go the other way when it comes to car stereo. I've never heard a system with only front speakers and a sub that I thought sounded any good. I prefer a balance of speakers with a sub, and the 4" rear doors just aren't going to cut it. By mounting 5.25" full-range speaker in the rear deck, plus separates up front and a sub in the truck, I should be able to get a balanced, and clean sound. I'll just disconnect the rear door speakers, as the size is too small and that location is non-ideal. Just need to figure out how to remove the grilles without breaking them.
 
#4 ·
I believe you can adapt a larger size speaker to the rear door. I note that you have a 94 model C 220 which means you can't get those rear deck speakers out of there without taking out the back seat first. I promise you, you won't get anything from the rear decks once you put subs in the trunk. I have a 12" in my trunk and I get NOTHING out of my rear deck Bose speakers. You can't even tell they're there. However, I do get decent sound mix out of the rear door speakers with the sub in the trunk. Personally, I've never heard a car audio system with rear deck speakers and a decent sub(s) in the trunk where you could even get any decent balance of sound out of the rear decks. If you want more, better information you need to visit club202.com and post in the Electronic Upgrades section.
 
#5 ·
I have been reading this post and I have read many suggestions, however no one has answered the question. The question was How does a person remove the rear deck speakers? I have a blown Bose speaker in my daughters C 280 and from what I see the entire rear passenger compartment including the seat and trim must be removed. If anybody has an easier way to do it, please answer the original question.
 
#6 ·
i've done it, and it took me literally minutes. it made a huge difference in bass response, since it ports the trunk to the cab, which is SUPER SOUND DEADENED otherwise.

i posted it on club202.com...here it is

*********************************
I just took out the rear deck speakers in my car and DAMN! The bass is literally 3-5x louder in the cab. I can actually hear the subs now!!!! (Although I just put my system in less than 24 hours ago. I searched around and everyone was saying to remove the rear deck, which requires taking out the seats, the c pillars, headrests, etc. A few people said to just take the grilles off, and take it out that way. Without any good instruction, i gave it a go and it was pretty simple...here are a few notes.

**Doing it this way is a TON less work. It took me about 30 minutes start to finish

1) With headrests UP, pop grilles off with flathead screwdriver. Might take a little convincing, just insert and twist being careful not to damage the grill or the deck upholstrey

2) With the headrests DOWN, remove the 4 screws in each "corner" of the speaker. You can see them from the outside. It's a torx screw, but you'll have a hard time fitting a torx driver in there. I used a small "L" shaped allen, 7/64, fits perfect.

3) Separate the upper grille from the speaker, and slide inwards (towards the center of the deck) and out.

4) From the trunk, remove the "bill" from the speaker basket. You can stick your fingers in the holes in the bottom and feel a tab that you push down. If that doesn't work, try up. But i think it's down. The "bill" should now come off.

5) Still from the trunk, you'll see 2 black plastic tabs that hold the speaker/basket in. They are located on the side of the speaker closest to the rear seatback. Push them in and you should be able to pop the speaker up with no problems

6) From the inside, remove the harness from the clip (where the wires attach to the basket) and from there, you can dissasemble the connector to disconnect the speaker from the wiring. I chose to disconnect form the speaker side, so the wiring left in the trunk/deck has a harness- and no exposed wiring. Then i tucked them in wherever i could that wouldn't make a rattle.

Turned on the car, double checked my eq settings, popped in some st. lunatics and cranked the motherfucker up.

DAMN!!!!

Now i've got to pad my rear liscence plate and tighten the trunk latch to clear up the rattling.

DAMN!!!! The difference is night and day.

Not bad, considering i've had the car 1 week today
 
#7 ·
rman said:
i've done it, and it took me literally minutes. it made a huge difference in bass response, since it ports the trunk to the cab, which is SUPER SOUND DEADENED otherwise.

i posted it on club202.com...here it is

*********************************
I just took out the rear deck speakers in my car and DAMN! The bass is literally 3-5x louder in the cab. I can actually hear the subs now!!!! (Although I just put my system in less than 24 hours ago. I searched around and everyone was saying to remove the rear deck, which requires taking out the seats, the c pillars, headrests, etc. A few people said to just take the grilles off, and take it out that way. Without any good instruction, i gave it a go and it was pretty simple...here are a few notes.

**Doing it this way is a TON less work. It took me about 30 minutes start to finish

1) With headrests UP, pop grilles off with flathead screwdriver. Might take a little convincing, just insert and twist being careful not to damage the grill or the deck upholstrey

2) With the headrests DOWN, remove the 4 screws in each "corner" of the speaker. You can see them from the outside. It's a torx screw, but you'll have a hard time fitting a torx driver in there. I used a small "L" shaped allen, 7/64, fits perfect.

3) Separate the upper grille from the speaker, and slide inwards (towards the center of the deck) and out.

4) From the trunk, remove the "bill" from the speaker basket. You can stick your fingers in the holes in the bottom and feel a tab that you push down. If that doesn't work, try up. But i think it's down. The "bill" should now come off.

5) Still from the trunk, you'll see 2 black plastic tabs that hold the speaker/basket in. They are located on the side of the speaker closest to the rear seatback. Push them in and you should be able to pop the speaker up with no problems

6) From the inside, remove the harness from the clip (where the wires attach to the basket) and from there, you can dissasemble the connector to disconnect the speaker from the wiring. I chose to disconnect form the speaker side, so the wiring left in the trunk/deck has a harness- and no exposed wiring. Then i tucked them in wherever i could that wouldn't make a rattle.

Turned on the car, double checked my eq settings, popped in some st. lunatics and cranked the motherfucker up.

DAMN!!!!

Now i've got to pad my rear liscence plate and tighten the trunk latch to clear up the rattling.

DAMN!!!! The difference is night and day.

Not bad, considering i've had the car 1 week today
Thanks for coming in here and answering that one. I've been thinking about removing my rear decks since they do nothing for the sound in the car. I'll probably give your method a shot.
 
#8 ·
rman said:
i've done it, and it took me literally minutes. it made a huge difference in bass response, since it ports the trunk to the cab, which is SUPER SOUND DEADENED otherwise.
Cool, thanks for the info.

davis449: The rear door speaker location is really cramped. I managed to fit a 5.25 back there, but it contacts the window when rolled down, and I don't have much room to move it forward. Plus the rear deck is a much better location for sound quality.

Just sounds like we have different tastes on the stereo, as your 12" JL is probably bigger than I'd put in the car, I'm thinking a 6" (maybe 8") un-powered Bazooka. I don't want shaking bass, just a nice tight low-end to complement the rest of the stereo.

Because I listen to mostly vocals, the midrange is critical, and I really prefer the sound of 4 speakers instead of 2 in the car (ironicly my home stereo is really dedicated to 2-channel)

James
 
#9 ·
also, somewhere out there (probably on club202.com) there are instructions for removing the rear deck. I have not done it (yet), but it is supposed to only take about 1 hour.

I plan to do it to either fab up a custom one or just sound deaden the hell out of it
 
#10 ·
jjcarr said:
Cool, thanks for the info.

davis449: The rear door speaker location is really cramped. I managed to fit a 5.25 back there, but it contacts the window when rolled down, and I don't have much room to move it forward. Plus the rear deck is a much better location for sound quality.

Just sounds like we have different tastes on the stereo, as your 12" JL is probably bigger than I'd put in the car, I'm thinking a 6" (maybe 8") un-powered Bazooka. I don't want shaking bass, just a nice tight low-end to complement the rest of the stereo.

Because I listen to mostly vocals, the midrange is critical, and I really prefer the sound of 4 speakers instead of 2 in the car (ironicly my home stereo is really dedicated to 2-channel)

James
Ah I get it now. I thought you had plans for like two 10's in the trunk! No, you're probably exactly right to do what you're going to do considering the smaller sub setup. On another note. My bass doesn't really shake the car with 1 12". I'm pushing only about 250 watts through it and I went with a 12" because of what rman said, the trunk is so insulated, I decided to go 12" to get penetration into the cabin. In retrospect, I probably didn't need this big of a sub.
 
#11 ·
davis449 said:
Ah I get it now. I thought you had plans for like two 10's in the trunk! No, you're probably exactly right to do what you're going to do considering the smaller sub setup. On another note. My bass doesn't really shake the car with 1 12". I'm pushing only about 250 watts through it and I went with a 12" because of what rman said, the trunk is so insulated, I decided to go 12" to get penetration into the cabin. In retrospect, I probably didn't need this big of a sub.
Yeah, for comparison, the best car stereo I ever heard (for my tastes) had Boston separates all around, and a pair of Boston 8" subs. Clean, simple, tight, but definitely not booming bass.

My setup will be:
Infinity 6.25 separates up front ($100 on eBay)
Infinity 5.25 coaxials on the rear deck ($50 on eBay)
Sony HU (yeah..cheap HU, but actually works well and I need MP3 playing) ($150 on eBay)
Rockfork 5-channel amp ($75 on eBay)
Bazooka 6" or 8" non-powered sub (about $50-$100 on...you guessed it, eBay)

Being a C220 that I use as a commuter, I wanted to get a nice setup without spending much $$$. Given that I can put the entire system together for under $500 I figure it's hard to go wrong. Gotta save $$$ for that 540it...:)

Based on the comments above, I'll also remove the extra 5.25 and cover plate to allow two 5.25" 'holes' from the trunk to the cabin. This might increase road noise a little, but with a decent sub back there I shouldn't notice, and it does make sense that it will improve the bass.
 
#12 ·
I agree with you on the "best system" thing. Boston is badass shit. On your planned setup, I would HEAVILY reconsider the Sony HU and find something else in an Alpine, Eclipse, Calrion, or Pioneer variety.
 
#13 ·
Yeah, it's a concession to asthetics, the unit I'm getting is:
which has a nice dark grey color to it an matches the interior well. The ultimate sacrelidge is that it replaces a Nakamichi CD-300, which sounds wonderful, but has a horrible interface, barely reads MP3's, and despite having a beautiful face, sticks out about 3/4" of an inch, making it incredibly ugly.

I just can't find any other head unit that doesn't look like crap to me. The Sony has Burr-Brown's, and I won't be using the built-in amp, so it should be workable. The Sony unit also has an interface that I like a lot, makes it very easy to skip from album to album on an MP3 disk. But good GOD, that DSO effect junk sounds HORRIBLE...ugh...

BTW, want to buy the Nak?...:)
 
#14 ·
jjcarr said:
Yeah, it's a concession to asthetics, the unit I'm getting is:
which has a nice dark grey color to it an matches the interior well. The ultimate sacrelidge is that it replaces a Nakamichi CD-300, which sounds wonderful, but has a horrible interface, barely reads MP3's, and despite having a beautiful face, sticks out about 3/4" of an inch, making it incredibly ugly.

I just can't find any other head unit that doesn't look like crap to me. The Sony has Burr-Brown's, and I won't be using the built-in amp, so it should be workable. The Sony unit also has an interface that I like a lot, makes it very easy to skip from album to album on an MP3 disk. But good GOD, that DSO effect junk sounds HORRIBLE...ugh...

BTW, want to buy the Nak?...:)
I would've bought the Nak before you told me that it BARELY reads MP3's (what do you mean by this?). The sitcking out problem wouldn't really be an issue for me as I don't have my HU in the stock location, but I if I did, it would be annoying. I know some of the club202 guys have the CD-400's in their cars w/the same config I have (stock Bose + HU + subs) and rave about the sound quality. I've never heard them bitch about it's functionality though. Interesting...but anyway, the Sony you've decided on isn't a bad looking head unit in the car. The way I was looking at it was from a sound quality angle. Sony hasn't been the best in that dept. and I was surmising that you could get a better one for the same amt. of money you're paying for the Sony, but to each his own. BTW, yeah Nakamichi --> Sony = sacrelidge...LOL!
 
#15 ·
I had a lot of trouble burning CD's that it would read. Nakamichi recomends you finalize CD's and burn them as data CD's. I did that on several brands of CDR and at best the Nakamichi would recognize the first 12 songs only. Never could get it to read an entire CD. I'm sure there's a way to do it, I just didn't want to hastle. It seemed to have a lot of difficulty understanding folders. And all of these CD's played with no problem on the Sony. This might be an issue with the CD-300 only, it's obviously trimmed down on functionality compared to the higher-end models.

There's no comparison in sound quality, I'd take a Nakamich over any other brand, Alpine and Eclipse make nice units, but the Nak is just about the best out there from sound quality.

I'd definitely prefer to get a Clarion or Eclipse unit, but I just couldn't find one that appealed to me. So I'm sacrificing some sound quality for looks. I REALLY don't like the direction of most stereo's these days, I prefer simple, clean faces, like the Nakamichi. If my old CD-35Z read MP3's I'd never give it up.

What would really be nice is to find a decent head unit with a digital out, and then get the Nakamichi DAC unit (assuming the HU converts MP3's to PCM format) that would probably be just about the best sounding setup you could get.

James
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top