2010 low budget speakers intall

Recently bought our daughter a 2010 II with 140,000 miles on it from I guy I knew that had inherited it from his deceased in-laws. All service/recall paperwork and online info from the dealership showed service was done every 5,000 miles. Leather interior but basic otherwise.

Anyway, the stereo system had little to be desired. After extensive research on PC, I respectfully thank all of you for the great input and advice offered and hope this helps someone else in the same situation.

Crutchfield was my go to just from past experience with accessories and any tech help. I plan to upgrade the HU after her birthday when she can legally drive her car with a touchscreen nav system. Right now she just has a blue tooth in the aux port.

I went with kicker cs series all the way around. They were on sale, buy on get one half price, and the reviews and reputation was great. 3 1/2" easily fit up front with simple trimming the soft plastic with a razor and finger drilling holes in the existing threaded inserts. I did install a 100uf blocker as described else where.

The front also got the cs 6x9's. The adaptors bolt to the door fine but they do not match up with the speakers. Your holes will have to be altered and the supplied bolts will not work. I rolled a small 1/8"-1/16" sized rope of butyl between the door/adaptor/speaker to cut down on any future rattles and used loc tite on all bolts.

In the rear I used the cs 6 3/4" doing the same with the butyl rope and loc tite.

Prior to installing the speakers i installed the noico sound deadener sheets to the exterior panels. My daughter even helped me. We cut patterns out of brown butcher paper, cleaned with water and denatured alcohol, and covered as much as the panel between the crash braces as possible. The patterns helped speed up the install on the other side. I also used the butyl rope as described in another thread and pushed it between the outer panel and the crash braces. Amazing difference just knocking on the outside of the door. Didn't sound like a tin can anymore. Also installed the noico on the inner panel just on the larger open areas. I didn't cover the large holes, just installed on large areas of metal with left over pieces.

Just doing the doors like this made a phenomenal difference in bass while cutting some road noise.

I installed an alpine (scratch and dent $106) 445U amp under the dash. I bought both wiring harness/connectors (both males, and both females) so I could solder everything up and created a and plug and play connection. Make sure you hook up all the grounds on the line convertors, including for a sub (cuts down whining). Hook up (to ground) the orange and white/black grounds on the speaker side plug. The instruction's say do not use but It, but it controls the stereo's night time dash lights dimmer(found that on here too). Also, the blue, antenna feed wires need to be hooked up because they also power the cd/aux button (crutchfield helped me with that after am/fm worked but cd/aux wouldn't). The amp tucks neatly up in the dash and has more than enough power for my ears.

I had an old 8" jl audio micro sub (the semi round ones from 99-2000). Picked up a 12cx3001 kicker 150 watt amp @4 ohms that had been refurbished and sold ($69) by a cert. dealer on amazon. Installed 4, 1 1/2" rubber feet on it where it's facing down in the back and stuck some banana plugs so she could easily remove it if needed.
I stuck the amp in the storage tray in the lower corner near the battery. I used two 1' aluminum pieces of square tubing and bolted it down the rails of the amp and stuck velco to the bottom of the tubing. The other side was taped to the bottom of the storage box corner. This keeps it off the floor. All the wiring easily runs out the lower right corner of the tray without cutting any holes and she can simply pull the amp off the storage tray, and sit the whole amp on the shelf above the battery giving her easy access to the spare if needed and when done just stick it back on the Velcro.

Settled on setting the alpine amp on the fronts to 60hz and the rear on 80hz. This gave the best midbass from the 6x9's and sounds the most natural with a little fill from the rears. And.... that little sub thumps. I'm more of a hair band guy but her music will make the rear view mirror shake.

All through school I always messed with audio but with what's out there now and the technology, it's amazing what you can build for the money. It's the best system I've every had in any of my vehicles.

I'm also going to finish up the rear hatch with noico and reading about the MLV and foam to see what else can be done.

Again, thanks for all the advice and info.

 

Velcro'd to base of storage bin.

Removed and placed to the side for spare access.

I installed 1 1/2" feet on the flat side of the sub and banana plugs so she could remove it easily.

 

Just buy one that goes under the front seat. Not that much wiring and you won't have to worry about it.
That was my other option but I had that 8" JL audio micro-sub in the garage. I took it apart to re-caulk the bass port tube that was loose, check the packing, and wiring and I noticed stamped on the inside was 1999. Damn I'm old but that thing still thumps.