Technical Speaker problems after accident

[Tessia]

A week ago I was involved in a low speed crash, front drivers side impact at about 15mph.

I have an aftermarket stereo and speakers installed.

Since the crash I have had very quiet audio from the rear speakers but the front ones were OK. Today the front passenger speaker went very crackly.

Now for the weird bit... when I use either window, it randomly makes the passenger side speaker go quiet/loud. I also noticed a high pitch wine from the speakers which gets louder with higher revs.

Does anyone have any idea where to start with this?

 

[steveras57]

Hi as a first step itmight be worth removing the head unit and checking no connections have been disturbed in the minor accident!

Other than that its worth bearing in mind that speaker units contain many coils of fine copper wire and its possible that the unit(s) may have been damaged by the impact forces in the accident! and its also possible that the head unit itself has suffered damage!

 

[Tessia]

Hi as a first step itmight be worth removing the head unit and checking no connections have been disturbed in the minor accident!

Other than that its worth bearing in mind that speaker units contain many coils of fine copper wire and its possible that the unit(s) may have been damaged by the impact forces in the accident! and its also possible that the head unit itself has suffered damage!

Hi,

Thanks for the reply.

I forgot to say, I checked behind the stereo and other then one slightly loose wire, everything is OK. Wiggling everything around doesn't cause any change in audio. I think the wiring there is OK.

I've got to strip everything out Saturday to replace the seatbelts (pretensioners have gone off on both front seatbelts) so while in there, I can hook the speakers up to an external device and check that they are not the issue.

I just find it odd that using either window, causes audio changes, not every time but some times. If it was just the window on the side of the effected speaker I'd assume the window is pushing against a wire. However as using the window on the opposite side can also cause these changes, it's got me a bit stumped.

I've been advised by a friend who does a lot of audio work in cars, to check the earth straps from the battery to make sure they're OK.

 

[steveras57]

Any electricial device in operation creates a small magnetic field!(including the window motors!) if the the fragile speaker wires have been damaged or disturbed in relation to the fixed speaker magnet then its not to big a leap to assume that the field generated by the window motors might be having an effect on the speaker(s)
YOU will know more once youve tested the speakers themselves! keep us updated please!.

 

[Tessia]

Any electricial device in operation creates a small magnetic field!(including the window motors!) if the the fragile speaker wires have been damaged or disturbed in relation to the fixed speaker magnet then its not to big a leap to assume that the field generated by the window motors might be having an effect on the speaker(s)
YOU will know more once youve tested the speakers themselves! keep us updated please!.

That would make sense.

Thought it was worse asking here before the big tear down ahead of me just incase someone had experienced it before. I know that on these cars the hatch wiring can cause many issues so didn't know if this could be one of them. I've also heard that the earth straps in this car aren't the best so could possibly be an issue.

I'll post an update once I know more.

 

[steveras57]

Once again its worth checking the earth strap as well! as if it was not that good anyway the impact forces might have nearly broken it completely! thus causing poor contacts for the whole earth system! you have not told us how old your car is ? but the straps are past there best at about 5 years old so if your car is 2018 or earlier and you dont know it HAS been done then do it anyway!.

As you say might be worth checking the hatch wiring as any problems here can screw the CAN-BUS communications right up! dont want to sound like a broken record but once again the impact forces involved in even a low speed bump can easily travel through the chassis and if that area was weak then who knows the results!

 

[The Panda Nut]

I had crackly speakers on one of ours when we boyght it. A wire was very loose on the speaker its self. There have been others with this. Mat just need the connections tightened a little i teh doors if not at the head unit. Aometin=mes if the connection noy good it doesnt take much to upset things