I have a 2001 Cherokee. Since I bought it, the front and rear speakers haven't worked. The ones on the top in the cargo area work though.

The front and rear ones don't even do so much as crackle. So I assume there may be electrical problems?

There was an aftermarket deck in it when I got it, so I pulled that out earlier to make sure everything was attached properly and it looked fine.

Are these speakers prone to completely dying? Or maybe some wiring got messed up? I am completely lost with it, and I don't want to have to pay someone to figure it out. I am fairly mechanically inclined, so I am just looking for a nudge in the right direction as to what the problem could be...

Any ideas would be awesome

 

The wires that go from the front speakers, through the doors to the body tend to crack and break. There is a good youtube video, showing how to fix this issue. I am unfamiliar with the rear speaker issue.

 

Do you have a wiring diagram? It's easy to check speakers for continuity with a 9V battery. Simply disconnect the speaker wires and briefly touch across the terminals on the battery, if it pops the wiring & speakers should be OK.

 

Here ya go....

 

Thanks guys I will take a look and check back to let you know what was up.

 

Do yourself a favor and run all new speaker wire. Less headaches and sounds 100% better then stock wires.

 

If the wires aren't cracked find a multimeter and check the dc resistance of the speakers. If the resitance jumps around a lot or isn't anywhere close to four ohms the speakers are blown.

 

Unless the wires were shorting on something the difference of sound quality between two wires would way to small to notice.

 

It is very apparent in sound quality.

 

Not meaning to thread jack op but unless there was something wrong with the wire like corrosion or it being pinched or shorted or if there was an extreme size difference there really won't be a difference in sound. The only place where you see really high quality wire being used is in $10k and up home stereo systems. Heck some of the wire I see at best buy has two different types of wire for positive and negative. I am a member at many car audio forums which doesn't mean I'm an expert. But I did rewire my whole car front to back audio wise and could hear no difference in quality besides it being louder from the reduced voltage drop from the larger wire.

Now if the current wire is damaged then it would make a huge difference.