Replacing rear speakers w/monsoon and airbags

[bjm306]

I just bought a 06 GXP and want to change out the rear speakers. I know that I have to remove the rear deck lid. I am having a little trouble removing the rear sils. My car has side airbags and am not sure how to remove the panal? Any help would be great. Also once I replace the speakers how to I splice the wires into the new speakers. Thanks in advance.

[GXP Bill]

Hi, I have an 06 with the Monsoon and side airbags as well, and what a pain in the butt it is to get the back deck a part. Crutchfield sent instructions, but they weren't too clear. I did get it all apart and put new Infinity Reference speakers in the back and they sound terrible. Please let me know how yours come out. I think this is something with the Monson amp.

To get the rear deck cover (Top pad) out, you need to do the following:

1) You need to remove the 2 back pillars that go along the roof line. You can do this by pulling off the small Airbag plastic inserts. They are little circular plastic pieces that say airbag on them. There is one on each side. Underneath there is a phillips screw holing the piller up. Once you remove the screw, you can pry off the piller. THere is only 1 clip holding it up, plus the screw that you ned to take off. Once you pull them off, there is a little rubber strap that is about 3" long that is still attached. I just left this on and was able to move the piller around to get the rest apart.

2) Fold down the back seats and unscrew the 4 bolts that hold the grey hold down piece in place across the top of the back seat. You will see this once the seats are folded down. Once you get these out is the tricky part. There is one push in type plastic clip on each side of the back mat that is aout 4-6" down from the top of the deck and is behind the part of the seat that is left when the seats are folded down. You need to pry behind the seat to pop these loose. Again, there is one on each side. I destroyed one getting it out, bit the other came out ok. Once those are loose, you need to flex the back deck by pulling it up from behind where the seat would be. Bow it up in the center and work each side up. Once you get it past the back support piece the whole top deck piece will pull out and you can get to the back speakers. I hope this helps.

Please let me know how your speakers come out. Mine sound terrible. I am looking for some advice on bypassing the amp all together.

[eddie97gt]

try pioneers ts a series 6x9 they are designed to work with low power that the factory amps put out , should be about 100 bucks , or jl tr6x9 they are a lil more but would sound great on that factory amp , rated 10-60 watts but they jam good had a set in mine till i got hard up for some cash and sold them to a friend of mine , but i just had them running off my pioneer deck and i could hear them over my 15 easily

[raylightjr]

These are great and perfect instructions, Bill. I recently replaced mine with 6x9 subs and seperate tweeters, using the factory amp and correct wiring. Everything sounded great and suddenly I lost the rear tweeters/highs. The subs still work fine. Do you have any suggestions what happened?

[raylightjr]

I paid big $’s for the Monsoon upgrade in my ’06 Grand PrixGXP. It was a huge mistake! As I kept blowing speakers all around, I decided toupgrade all the speakers with aftermarket but it was a challenge to find 2 ohmand 3 ohm speakers that would fit. Finally, I did it! I’m a true audiophile andthe sound is HUGE.

The solution is simple. I used Infinity Reference all around;in the dash, the doors, and even in the rear deck. I bought two 9602ix 6”x9”,two 6502ix 6 ½”, three 3002cfx 3 1/2”, and two 075tx 3/4” tweeters. I shopped,bought online, and paid less than $375 for everything.

Everything fit and I kept all the factory harnesses intact.I simply clipped the leads from the crappy paper speakers and connected them directlyto the Infinity’s.

The only challenge was the rear deck but it turned out to befairly simple. I took my Dremel and cut the enclosure part off the X bracketthat held the 3” crappy mid woofers and mounted the Infinity 3002cfx directly tothe arms of the modified X bracket. I had plenty of clearance, since I didn’tmount the 6”x9”s to the plastic, snap-in, speaker bracket like the stock ones.Instead, I literally just dropped the 6”x9” speakers right into the cutout inthe back deck. Then I snapped the factory speaker bracket on top of thespeaker, making a super tight mount without any fasteners. I connected the lowpass to the 9602ix’s and the high pass to the 3002cfx’s.

Done! I know I lost a lot of the frequency response from allof the speakers because of the Monsoon amp/crossover but it was relativelyinexpensive and an easy installation. The sound I have is nearly competition. Ihope this helps everyone trying to do the same.

Also, If anyone wants to purchase the factory speakers Ipulled out, hit me up in a private message. I have them all except the 3” midwoofers that were blown.