Upgrading the original speakers from the Suzuki Jimny

Portuguese

By Daniel Brooke Peig (23/3/2011, updated on 19/03/2012)

If you have a Suzuki Jimny up to 2011 (or later) you probably noticed the very bad sound quality of the original sound system. The bad quality is not from the receiver/player but from the low-end Sanyo speakers included on the car. This tutorial will teach you how to replace the frontal speakers by a pair of better quality ones.

To preserve the original factory warranty this installation will not alter the electric cables, the car body or the holes for fixation.

I recommend also the Installation of the rear speakers on the Suzuki Jimny, it will take you two more hours but the results won't disappoint you.

Choosing the best sound speakers for the replacement

Since we don't want to change the original characteristics of the veichle, there are not many options available for the speakers. The original mount has a very limited short space and shares most of it with cables form other systems of the car.

The original speaker is Sanyo with 4 inch diameter, 10W of RMS power (max of 25W) and 4 ohm resistance. The original player is a Clarion unit is limited to 14W RMS per channel (max 30W).

When chosing the new speakers I recommend to look for parts with the closest power rates from the CD player. If a lower power speaker is selected you'll notice a lot of distortion on higher volumes. If a speaker with high power (for example 100W RMS) is used the player will not have enought power to move the cone leading to a very low volume play.

On my Jimny I used a Selenium brand 4 inch 3-way speaker model 4TR5A. Each one of the speakers from the kit have 25W of RMS power (max 50W), very close to the capacity of the Clarion player. A 0,75 mm² cable is OK for this rated power.

Materials

• 10mm Wrench
• Phillips screwdriver
• Soldering iron (you can also use female terminals)
• Electric tape
• Plier (to close the terminals)
• Solder
• 4 male terminals 5mm wide (see pictures)
• 2 pieces of 0,75mm² sound cable with 20cm of lenght
• Pair of 4 inch speakers with 4 Ohms of resistance

Step by Step of the installation

Wiring diagram from Suzuki. Later I noticed that the colors of the left and right side are inverted on the car assembly.

Material needed. The amount of male terminals needed is 4.

Welding the sound cable on the speakers. Be careful with the wire polarity. 20cm of cable is more than enought. Less cable is better when you are dealing with sound.

Fix the terminals using the plier. To archieve a better finish I also applied some solder.

On the veichle, before removing the speaker cover you'll need to take of the plastic door finish. Just pull it up using your bare hands. You don't need to take out all this part, just the front ending.

The pice that holds the speaker cover on place is not a screw. To deatach it just turn the philips 90° and then pull out.

There are no internal clips on the speaker cover. Be carefull with the fragile assembly fittings giving more attention to the one shown on the picture.

Original installation. You can notice the restricted space. The speaker divides the installation hole with other electrical system cables. The screws requires a 10mm wrench.

After unscrewing the speaker it's possible to take a look at the original (non-standard) plug. The positive wire is the one with a black stripe.

Details from the original speaker. Notice that are no no indications of the positive and negative poles.

Comparison between the original and the new speakers. You may need to enlarge the diameter of the hole on the speaker for the OEM screw.

Plug the terminals into the OEM connector. Pay attention to the polarity. Some electric tape can help to avoid short circuits.

Final installation. On this application I just fixed the speaker from the side without need of drilling a larger diameter hole.