Forester STI – Fitting Rear Door Speakers


I’d already fitted some new, larger door speakers in the front doors as shown here. One of the rears had a bit of a rattle and they were likely to be in the same poor condition that I found the fronts in so may as well change them too.

Off with a door card to take a look. The door cards come off in the same way shown in the link above.

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It’s not worth spending too much on rear door speakers as you’re unlikely to notice the difference over cheaper options. I’d fitted Focal speakers up front so I thought I’d go for the same brand though a slightly cheaper, lower specification. I also didn’t waste effort trying to figure out how to fit a much larger cone diameter.

I went for a pair of Focal Auditor RCX-130. They’re a larger cone diameter than the OEM speaker and include a tweeter but fit in the OEM speaker hole in the door without the need for any adapter or spacer.

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4 black marker lines showing where to drill the mounting holes.

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Before fitting the speakers I added some sound deadening and closed cell foam from SilentCoat.co.uk.

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Again, no point getting too carried away in the rear doors but this was using the left overs I had from doing the front doors.

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The OEM speakers had two spade connectors for the plug in the door to connect on to. If possible I didn’t want to have to chop the car loom and have to remake connections etc.

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So I cut the OEM speaker connection off to fit it to the new Focal speaker allowing the OEM wiring plug to fit the Focal speaker.

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Speaker in place and plastic trimmed and taped back in place.

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Door card back on and on to the other side.

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Speaker in and door card back on. No more rattly speakers.