Sub woofer Install for dummies, no upgraded audio.

Subwoofer install for dummies by a subwoofer dummy... No upgraded JBL audio.

2010 USA prius, step by step mostly..


-I had no clue how to install a subwoofer a week ago. And even after reading the tons of articles on here, its still scary to work with wires in the car! So this should help and answer a few questions that may have been obvious to others but weren't to me.
-I’m sure most the info is in the forums but it took hours of searching for me, and I know there's a great forum post with the JBL audio and a subwoofer, but I do it differently.
-If you or your car get hurt im not responsible, I had no idea what I was doing beforehand, may not be all 100% accurate, but mine works great

My subwoofer has a built in amp, so if you don’t, you’ll just need to attach the amp to the speaker at any point.

We begin:
1. You’ll need:
-- A subwoofer and amp, or sub/amp somb
- Speaker Wire kit (power wire, ground wire, speaker wire, remote turn on wire (or more speaker wire...), and a fuse for the amp, and one for the power wire)
-- Wire Stripper
- Flat Head Screwdriver
-- Allen Wrench
- Razor blade(recommended), or wire tap-ins
-- Hex Nut Driver/ Socket wrench
- And Possibly an Allen Wrench set for the fuse holder.


2. Remove panels around door from prius rear, and the battery cover in the back left of the car



You can pull right at this friction clips location ^, and once that one pops off, pull the rest with your hand, along with the bottom so it looks like this:



3. With the battery, lift up on the red tab shown below, loosen the screw with the socket wrench, and get your power wire underneath the screw and tighten. You don’t have to disconnect anything on the battery.



4. Take that wire, and connect the fuse in the middle of the power wire, anywhere less than 3 feet from the battery connection. (White circle below!)



5. Connect the power wire to your amps power connection.

6. Take your ground wire, run it from the Ground on the amp, to a ground location in the prius. I used the screw in the back of the prius (Red circle in picture), because I don’t use them for anything , (Do not let the ground wire touch your wire from the battery! Or the fuse will blow)

7. (optional, recommended) Take a small piece of speaker wire (few inches long) and run the wire from the amps remote turn on, to the amps power screw. The amp should power on!! If it doesn’t, check your connections, somethings wrong.

---------


A mess right now.. clean it up after you’re done..

8. Amp off, connect your speaker wire to the amp for the left/right, and then move yourself up to the back seat where the rear panels are off.

9 (right). For the right side, you're looking for the red and white wire at the top of the connection to the door. Then either use your wire tap-in (not recommended by me) (shown below with the red wire), use a razor blade to make a connection without a wire tap-in. (shown below with the white wire)



10. (optional) Power up your amp and test it with music, some bass should work.

11 (left). The left will have a black and yellow wire, on the bottom of the connection to the door. Use a razor blade like seen below to carefully cut a bare spot of wire again.



12. Connect your wires, and use electrical tape to cover these up well.



13. (optional, recommended) Power and Test Your speaker, make sure you hear all bass sounds. If not working, somethings wrong with the connections. try switching your speaker wires on the amp around.

14. Before placing panels back on the car, run the remote turn on wire up the right side of the car, under all the panels, all the way to under the steering wheel. I found this the easiest to use, unlike many suggesting the centre console, AND this will have 100% hidden wires, which you couldn’t get with the centre console.

--Ignore how theres two wires, one is used for LEDs


15. Connect it to a fuse that turns on with the car (just put it under the fuse and pop the fuse back in, or buy one of those special fuses with an outside connection, if you must.

The yellow 20 works out well, used for the rear windshield wipe.


16. Test, turn on your car and make sure the amp is on with it, and off when the car is off!

17. Run all the wires from the car connections, to the amp, inside the door panels you removed at the beginning, put all the panels back on, and then shorten any wires that need to be shorter at the amp.

18. (optional) Add a switch from radio shack if you want. I ended up connecting it through the same switch for my accent LED lighting, under the wheel. There's a screw over on the left side underneath



19. Done. clean wiring, professional looking, professional sounding.. But not professional at all.






Thats it hope I helped

 

I tied a pretty good knot with the cords, but will be using my friends solder gun to make them better.

Yes very slightly, whys it do that?

Was sick of the wire tap in's after trying 8 of them and them breaking. Solder will be done soon. and the wiper tap in would've been easier if I knew which wire.

 

Glad it helped out!!