1999 996 Factory speaker grills in door means factory speakers ?

My '99 996 was purchased last summer and little by little the repairs and upgrades have advanced rather well. One of the first mods was to pull out an old Kenwood CD player and install a clean Sony double DIN unit. From what I gather I had a base model 4 speaker no sub or amp package. I had ordered the proper harness adaptors from Crutchfield only to find once pulling the old unit, that some PO had butchered the wires and it was a mess of tape and twisted wires. Thankfully years of electrical work, guitar and amp repair and more than a few various stereo installs paid off and I cleaned up the mess with proper solder joints and shrink tubing and installed my Sony. Using the 9V battery test, I went through all wires (after identifying constant power, backup, ground etc) and mapped out all speakers. Unit plays perfectly with no issues. Now what has always bothered me is that my door panels have factory speaker grills so one would assume there are (or were?) OEM speakers behind them? Not to keen on prying a door panel apart if there is nothing there plus adding new speakers as an afterthought is not to appealing.....for now until I get the tweaking bug Thoughts? PS random web photo with same "OEM" grills for reference.

If I understand correctly, your car is not supposed to have speakers in the front doors, and there is no sound coming out of the speakers in the front doors? Was there sound before you changed the head unit? I am not an expert on these early 996 specifications but if you provide the vin maybe someone who is can figure out what happened. It certainly looks like an OEM speaker grille. Perhaps the PO replaced the door cards with OEM ones when they upgraded the sound system?

Truth be told I do not recall having sound from the side door speakers before the stereo upgrade. Do those panels automatically mean that there are speakers behind the grills?

yeah if it didn't have speakers in there it would look like this: https://www.ebay.com/itm/18539663350...QAAOSwTW5iYw~M unless someone put on different door panels

Hmm certainly does make sense. I will remove the door panels and see what waits for me behind. Either way the grills allow for a reasonably quick install of upgraded speakers as opposed to cutting panels to mount new grills. I suppose a 6 channel PA is now in order to run all 6 speakers?

Quotes source post: 18256356

Not so fast there JoJo! �Reasonably quick� is a bit subjective no? I know you said you�ve got experience with this stuff, but the stock speakers are 5 1/4� and they�re mounted in funky plastic enclosures (to enhance bass, as the original use for these was as subs/low end woofers) - not a simple replacement scenario. So another question is; if they�ve been swapped out, what�s in there now?

Good point ! I guess no sense in guessing anymore and time to pull the door panels and see. Did the stock OEM base model system use any sort or power amp for those 6 speakers?

What type of factory amp and options ( will be listed on frunk sticker ) on stereo did the car come with? Pretty sure it is a 4 or 6 Chanel Nokia factory amp. I don’t think most bus was used in the 99’s. Door cards take about 15 mins to remove ( crutchfield has a great tutorial and will give you more detail on door speakers etc). The amps do go bad and often folks just disconnect the door speakers once the amp starts dying to get rid of the static and quasi dead door woofers. Good news for you is that the older non most 7ntis are cheap and plentiful on eBay and I have a small,pile of various amps from 00’-04’ 996 models.

Away on vacation for a week but I will most certainly check my frunk sticker and see. I can say that there is absolutely no wires nor mounting bracket where the amp should have been, That also might explain the rats nest of wires that I had behind the PO head unit. Given the lack of wires I suppose I am better off with a modern 6 channel amp and fresh door speakers after all?

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Yes. There�s a ton of the OEM door speakers for sale on eBay; aftermarket ones will require you to fab a mounting solution.

My �99 had poorly-installed aftermarket speakers behind the factory grills. I never knew it until one day I decided to investigate why they rattled so much. I yanked them out and went back to stock.

So here is the frunk sticker and the code states "basic sound system" and further inspection shows that the doors do indeed have OEM speakers. However my frunk has no evidence of there ever being a power amp installed, factory or otherwise, so how in the hell were they actually ever wired up? Frunk build sticker

What? So strange. Look on the little black placard on the drivers door jamb to get the MM/YY build date. Based on your VIN it�s a pretty early build but still they would not make the mistake of forgetting the amp. https://rennlist.com/forums/996-foru...ry-ad-hoc.html My guess it that the guy who installed the Kenwood also yanked the amp and associated wiring.

Ya that sounds about right to me as well. I assume that any and all amps and or CD changers were ALWAYS installed in the frunk by the factory? Sounds like a 6 channel amp purchase is in order or a used ebay OEM amp.

Quotes source post: 18271824

This VIN# only has 16 digits. Please take a picture of the VIN tag on the driver's door.