The front speakers in my 99 XJ are shot. They dont work at all. I was gonna replace them soon but I am not sure if the speakers themselves are gone or if its the wiring or something else. Anyway how can I tell what exactly is wrong with the speakers? Its only the front speakers. Thanks!

 

You probably have a loose wire somewhere. When i got my 2000, i thought i had a bad front speaker, until i took the door panel off and discovered the speaker was no longer connected. Reconnected it, good as new. Then installed kickers in the back to replace crackling speakers.


Hopefully that solves your problem, and it's not a bad connection elsewhere.

 

Id be willing to bet that wire is broken in the door jamb where it runs through the rubber boot. Your best best is to completely replace that wire.

You could test it by bypassing it..

 

If you have a factory head unit, it could be that. That's a pretty common problem to see those head units stop putting out sound to the fronts especially as speakers age and the voice coil either blows out or the resistance changes.

If you have the infinity sound system like I do (well, did) in my 2000 XJ then it could also be the amp.

To test and see where the problem is you'll need to pull the door panel and the head unit. Grab a multi-meter and stick one of the leads on one wire of the speaker, then the other lead on the corresponding wire behind the head unit and check for continuity. If you have a connection, test the other wire for the same.

If both test good, grab a 12v battery (up to 18v will be fine, much above that and I don't recommend this trick), hold the negative lead/wire to one battery post and tap the positive lead to the other post. This should make your speaker "pop", if you have the infinity sound system you may need to have your key on to allow the signal to pass through the amp. If it pops, at least you know the voice coil isn't completely shot; however, that starts to point at your head unit (or infinity amp) being bad.

After bypassing the Infinity amp in my XJ I ended up having to run new speaker wire to the drivers door anyways, the factory stuff was shot. GL!

 

x2 thats what mine was doing and thats what was wrong with mine...took about 20 minutes to fix

 

You can also connect a 9v battery to the speaker too. Of course you have to take the door trim off and the speaker out. If you hear a pop from the speaker then the speakers good. No pop, bad wiring.