1997 Camry Speaker Problem

[garyh99]

Neither the front door speaker nor the tweeter works on the driver's side. The speakers themselves have tested ok, so it seems like a wiring problem. How do I go about testing the wiring? Is it a straight wire from the radio, or what?

Thanks

[Mister_Perkins]

Originally Posted by garyh99

Neither the front door speaker nor the tweeter works on the driver's side. The speakers themselves have tested ok, so it seems like a wiring problem. How do I go about testing the wiring? Is it a straight wire from the radio, or what?

Thanks

Yeah wiring goes straight from the cd player to speakers.

disconnect the plug from the head unit, get a continuity tester and check the CD player wires at the head unit plug, and where the speaker wires connect.

if no continuity, the wires split somewhere

[hairball]

Yeah, what he said. ^

Not sure if you have a factory amp, but assuming you don't, the color of the left speaker wires are:

Pink is front left +
Purple is front left -

If you're not too handy with a multimeter (or just don't have one, an old trick I learned back in the 70's to see if a speaker works is to connect a D-cell battery to the wires. You will hear a slight pop. No damage will result, it simply moves the cone enough that you'll hear it, and therefore will know if that speaker (any speaker: home, car, portable radio, whatever) will work this same way). The trick is getting access to both wires going to the speakers you are testing.

I know you said the speakers have tested fine.

The reason I mentioned this is you could use it to test the wiring going to the left speakers. The same applies. If you connect a battery to both wires (Pink & Purple) you should hear a slight pop.

My idea for you is to unplug your stereo's main harness and find the Purple & Pink wires. They should be next to each other. Next, find a small length of scrap wire (smaller if possible, like 14-16 gauge) and strip off about a 1/4 inch of each end of TWO pieces of wire. Plug one end of each wire into the Pink & Purple female slots on the harness, the use the battery to send something through the wires.

Since you know the speakers work, if you hear nothing doing the above test, you have broken wires. It's actually a much easier test than it sounds. I've done it for many years.