Golf Mk V - Upgrading rear door speakers - anybody succeeded?

[GDEvans]

I think I have picked a complicated job here!

The rear door card is quite simple to remove. Unclip the lower part of the door handle by prising it off. Unscrew the 2 no #30 Torx screws behind the handle. Unscrew the 1 no #20 Torx screw at the bottom of the door. Use something (screwdriver?) to prise the door card off the retaining clips. Once these are removed, lift the door card off. Unclip the plugs.

This is where it starts getting interesting!

The bass speaker is in an integral frame which sits in a plastic surround within the door card. However the speaker is fixed to the door itself. The bad part is it is riveted to the door! How crazy is that.

Well quite sane really when you look at the tweeters. They are fixed to the door car with what looks like nails! Removing them would make it almost impossible to fit new tweeters, unless you use araldite etc.

The next interesting part is the wiring. There is a bundle of wires out of which 3 plugs emerge. One is for the electric windows. One is a 2 pin plug for the tweeter, with brown/black and brown/red wires. The last one is a four pin plug for the bass speaker, with brown/black, brown/red, brown/white and red/white wires. Testing with my meter showed the brown/black and brown/red wires on each plug to be the same.

From this I deduced that the audio signal comes into the bass speaker in the brown/white and red/white leads. There must be a crossover within the speaker, which then outputs the tweeter signal on the brown/black and brown/red wires.

The four pin plug appears to be compatible with the Autoleads PC2-807 connector, although I have not tested this yet.

I am currently stalled on this upgrade:

1. I am loathe to start ripping out the bass drivers when there is no guarantee they can be upgraded effectively.

2. The tweeters are not removeable. Therefore the Pioneer TS-C1602 speakers that I currently have (seperate tweeter and woofer) would not be useable. Also, the tweeters for the TS-C1602 are designed to be surface mounted at the rear, so to mount them on the inside of the door card would require a special bracket to be made.

3. The woofers for the TS-C1602 speakers are too large to fit in the "frame" on the back of the door card. This measures 156mm internally, but has a rubber seal in it. I believe a tube up to 150mm diameter would slide into this and seal nicely. The external diameter of the existing speakers is 146mm. My TS-C1602 are 158mm across.

4. I was also considering using some TS-G1640 2 way speakers (tweeter in centre of bass driver) that I also have in the garage. However, with a diameter of 157mm, these are also too big to fit in the door card speaker surround. I would (just) be able to get them to fit if it wasn't for the rubber surround. But this would require extremely accurate mounting. And the rubber surround is bonded to the door card.

5. There are 4 rivets on the bass speakers, at 110mm centres. This puts them on a 156mm circle - exactly the same as the cut out in the door card.. Therefore, any MDF speaker mount would need a larger base plate screwed to the door, with a smaller (148mm dia?) raised piece to hold the speakers. Both would need a large centre hole cut to suit the speakers. Not sure if my woodworking skills are that good!

Photos to follow.

Has anybody managed to upgrade these speaker successfully?

[Juancho]

Hi,
I took the door card off to have a look and don't quite see what the problems are........

You simply drill out the rivets and use a standard plastic adaptor that's available. I thought about upgrading the tweeters but most people-and I will be doing the same-simply use a good two way and leave the tweeter where it is.

I havn't removed the bass /mid yet so can't comment on the crossover arrangements except to say that the tweeter has a simple cap across it, so the bass unit should have an inductor to remove treble from it.

The rear door speakers are not teh reall culprits in the Golf Mk 5, these are the fronty mids which are terrible.

I bought Focal 3 way components and the the biggest difference was when I replaced the front mids with the focal units leaving the tweeter and nbass unti in place until I had time to drill out the rivets etc.

I presume you have replaced your front speakers otherwise that's the place to start!
Juancho

[GDEvans]

New front speakers are on order. I know that's an easy upgrade so I'm not too worried about the front ones.

Which speaker adaptor do you use? Is it the same as for the front speakers? None of the companies advertise rear speaker upgrades for the Golf V - only the front. The Pioneer catalogue only mentions the fronts. Autoleads only do an adaptor for the fronts.

I should have an adaptor for the front speakers in the next couple of days - ordered off ebay. When I get it I can see if it will fit the rears.

[Juancho]

Hi,
I didn't actually measure the rear speakers but the US based suppliers show the same adaptor for front and rear and the same size speaker so I would assume the same. As you say, wrorth measuring your adaptor when it arrives just to check.

Maybe Uk based companies don't bother with the rears because there is not enough demand.

I don't know what fronts you are using but my Focal bass units went in perfectly with the plastic adptor plate whilst the tweeter and mid required a vbit more fiddlingaround and sealing in with a glue gun.
Juancho

[GDEvans]

I'm going for Pioneer TS-A172C 2 way component speakers in the front. Prob get something like the TS-G1749 in the back.

[Juancho]

Hi
Did you ever get round to replacing your rear speakers? Have just bought mine and will be fitting soon!
Thanks

[GDEvans]

I've done the fronts but not the rears yet.

[Juancho]

Hi All,
I’ve now fitted my Polk speakers to the rear. These are the 6.5 ins Polk db 651s coaxial speakers. The speakers are a direct fit on the VW holes. So, easy really, you drill out the rivets and connect up to two of the four wires that go to the bass speaker. You can easily identify the two speaker wires that end up at the tweeter by colour-they are simply paralleled at the bass speaker with absolutely NO crossover element there, which is bad audio practice! The tweeter is simply protected from the strong bass by a capacitor (and if there is also a resistor it is well hidden behind the tweeter. ) The way I connected therefore leaves the tweeter in place in case you want to convert back to standard some day.

Of course, mounting the speaker direct on the existing holes means that the VW plastic mount that puts the speaker into the ‘grill tube’ is not used but acoustically that is advantageous as opposed to a problem.

One challenge is: how do you mount the speaker when you cannot get to the rear of the speaker as that is in the internal door space? You could use rivets as VW do, but I used self tappers plus the self tapper clip brackets that are commonly available. To keep these in place whilst I mounted the speaker I glue gunned these to the inner door panel, holding them there with the screw. Then I removed the screw, and mounted the speaker before screwing it up tight.

Most importantly, how does it sound? I am using Focal Polyglass VR3 3 way components in the front doors + a Focal 75watts a channel amp. These Polk speakers are a serious bargain! Considering the Focal’s cost 6 times more, the Polks hold up extremely well. They are articulate, expressive and smooth and only £50 (in the states). The combination with the Focals gives stunning sound and was another really worthwhile upgrade. Sound quality is now on a par with a top notch home stereo with vocal articulation better than most! BUT, if I was doing this again, I think I would be more than happy with two lots of the Polks, one up front and one up rear, they are truly one of life’s great bargains!

Juancho

[GDEvans]

Silly question - do the rear windows go all the way down with the speakers mounted straight in the door? I thought that was why the existing ones were surface mounted in a spacer. Do you know the depth of your Polk speakers?

[Juancho]

Hi, yep the speakers are quite shallow and don't interfere with th windows. I will check the spec and let you kno the depth.
Juancho