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Speakers only working intermittently


fladavid
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Hi. 

Posting this as a last roll of the dice to see if it can be finally be resolved as I'm sure its only something simple to fix with the right idea from someone. 

I have a 55 plate Focus and since owning it the Speakers are usually not working but every now and again they will suddenly start working. 

Yesterday after having work done on the car they were all on, this morning they're dead again. I tried each speaker independently yesterday to see which were active:

Both door tweeters- always on all the time and not affected by the intermittent fault at all. 

When fault inactive, as follows;

Driver front- working properly.

Passenger front- working properly. 

Driver rear- working but slightly blown. 

Passenger rear- not working at all. 

I'm assuming that there must be perhaps and earth issue or trapped wire on the feed to the main 4 door Speakers as they all react to the fault together. I've tried 3 head units so the fault can't lie there but I don't know if the Ghia has and amp inbetween the head unit and Speakers that could be at fault?

Any help would be greatly appreciated as I'm tearing my hair out and believe me I can't afford to lose any more!

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Damaged trapped wire, well that's what it is in my van. I really should sort it.

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Similar, normally when my mate opens passenger side door to get in, radio packs up, it comes back on after opening and closing again, seems to work ok when driving around tho, hence the reason I've not got round to sorting it.

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Was thinking of looking at each door but I would have thought that if one door was causing the break it would only affect that speaker, whereas mine all go off or on. 

Also I'm sure someone once told me that there is no wiring going through from the body to the doors like in the old days, it's now some sort of connector instead. 

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There's no separate amp, it's built into the headunit.

There is still normal speaker wiring in the doors, but each door has a multiplug connector to make them easily removeable, rather than one single wire from the headunit right through to the speaker.  

It would be worth removing the door multiplugs to check they are clean and free from damp or corrosion - though if everything else on the doors works, that's fairly unlikely to be the issue here.

If you have a multimeter, you can also check the resistance of each speaker and door wiring from the door plug - if the resistance is high on one in particular, there is likely to be a loose connection there which might make & break to cause the intermittent fault.  One speaker can affect all others. 

 

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Thanks Tom. 

I didn't realise that one speaker with a fault could affect all four. 

I don't have a multimeter as I'm just a novice at this. How do I check the multiplug  connector, what do they look like and where are they? Under the black rubber tubing through the door pillars?

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Yes, the multiplugs are at the end of the black rubber tubing.  The plug is hidden just inside the chassis, you have to pull the rubber away (it's recessed to make a good seal so takes a bit of force) and then the plug can be found behind there.  Just make sure you don't drop the chassis plug back into the car!

This is a rear door loom I've grabbed from eBay (fronts are similar). The multiplug can be seen at the bottom of the picture, it's rectangular, but you can see the black rubber tubing there for reference anyway.

FORD FOCUS MK2 TITANIUM ESTATE 2008-2011 DOOR WIRING LOOM (REAR ...

 

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If the central locking and electric window to each door is working then I assume that the Molex is OK but it might be a break in the speaker wire as it enters the door at the opposite end to the Molex?

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I'm now following this thread with interest, keep it up guys, who knows, i may sort my van out..

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8 minutes ago, fladavid said:

If the central locking and electric window to each door is working then I assume that the Molex is OK but it might be a break in the speaker wire as it enters the door at the opposite end to the Molex?

Yeah, I would also assume the plug to be ok if everything else works.  But that's where the multimeter test comes in useful as it can show a break anywhere between the plug and the speaker without having to remove the door panel and look visually.

It could be a break under the rubber sheath, the wires bend every time someone opens the door...which is probably thousands of times on the drivers door!  Or there is the chance of wires being loose inside the door, and rubbing against any piece of metal in there over every bump and rough ground you drive over, or against the window mechanism as it goes up and down for example.  There's lots of scope for wiring damage inside the doors, much less so behind the stereo but it's still possible for the fault to lie there.  

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Tom. Many thanks!!!

Tried the passenger rear Molex as that speaker isn't working ever so I thought it was logical to start there. As soon as I looked i could see the connector and rubber were slightly away from the bodywork so I fiddled with the Molex and the Speakers came on again, albeit not the actual speaker attached to that Molex still, so I assume that speaker is kaput totally anyway. 

Only worry is the Molex isn't gripping into the bodywork firmly and I was worried to try to disconnect it totally as you said it could fall into the chassis. I don't know if that means the clips attaching it to the bodywork are broken but I'm s##t scared to pull it apart to look in case I lose it. 

20200421_133737.jpg

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In fairness, it's not the end of the world if you do drop the plug, you'll just have to fish it out with a coat hangar or similar, but it is awkward!

I'd pull it, just making sure it's pulled straight out rather than any sort of angle so there's less risk of knocking the plug off if it is loose, but obviously it's your car and your choice lol! 

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Which part of the Molex clips to the bodywork Tom, the outer part or the part inside the bodywork? I can seem to pull it outwards towards me a bit but nothing locks onto the door pillar as I pull which makes me wonder if I should push the outer part towards the pillar for it to lock onto it?

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The outer part clips into the bodywork.  You should be able to pull the connected plug out by an inch or so before pulling the two apart.

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On 4/21/2020 at 3:50 PM, TomsFocus said:

The outer part clips into the bodywork.  You should be able to pull the connected plug out by an inch or so before pulling the two apart.

Went out in the car this morning and the speaker's stopped working again. 

I decided to try to pull the Molex out and pull it apart to see where the problem lies. No matter how I tried i couldn't pull the Molex out further than about 10mm then it grabbed the body work and refused to come out. Also I tried to push it in to the body work to see if it would clip in but it won't hold at all. I pulled apart a part of the Molex, see photo, but I think that's just an added part to hold the rubber, although I may be wrong. I also spayed electrical contact cleaner spray inside and around the Molex but again no joy. 

I get the feeling someone in the past has had this connector out, possibly for this problem, and has damaged it. 

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I can see a spring lock tab on the top of the black Shell. I would press this down and pull the black Shell out. The orange connector will stay with it. There might be a spring tab at the bottom too.

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3 hours ago, fladavid said:

Went out in the car this morning and the speaker's stopped working again. 

I decided to try to pull the Molex out and pull it apart to see where the problem lies. No matter how I tried i couldn't pull the Molex out further than about 10mm then it grabbed the body work and refused to come out. Also I tried to push it in to the body work to see if it would clip in but it won't hold at all. I pulled apart a part of the Molex, see photo, but I think that's just an added part to hold the rubber, although I may be wrong. I also spayed electrical contact cleaner spray inside and around the Molex but again no joy. 

I get the feeling someone in the past has had this connector out, possibly for this problem, and has damaged it. 

I'm not sure what to suggest tbh, it's one of those things that may be simple to see in the flesh but I just can't think why it won't come out of the chassis at the moment. 

You are correct in that the black cover there shouldn't really come apart, you'd only normally remove that in order to add or remove individual wires from the multiplug, to add an optional extra for example.

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Speakers are still playing up after all that. 

During the dry period we had they were on a lot, I went out to wash the car and after they weren't working again. Since we've had this rain they're still not working. Might be a coincidence or it might be something else. 

It's frying my brain!!!!

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One rear speaker is bad - blown, might have a tear in it. The other one might be playing up when it gets damp. Warm it up using a hair dryer by blowing warm air through the speaker grill, using a low heat setting. After a minute if it starts working you will know it is the problem. The Speakers are rated in watts and ohms, which are marked on their back. If that does not fix things try heating the door connector for a minute and see if the sound comes back on. If it does then the molex connector pin is making a poor contact inside the connector.

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