How To Install Car Speaker: A Simple Guide

Written by: Timothy Scott

December 8, 2022

Affiliate Disclosure: When you buy a product via our links, we sometimes earn a referral fee. Learn more

There is not much that’s more exciting than the idea of getting new speakers for your car, but for so many people the idea of actually installing the speakers is quite daunting.

In actual truth, though, replacing your old and uninspiring auto speakers with new ones is much easier than you might imagine, and in this quick but detailed how-to guide I will explain the steps in simple and understandable language.

So before you spend extra money for professional installation, read on – you’ll see that installing car speakers yourself is actually a snap!

Table of Contents

How to Hook Up Car Speakers Quickly and Easily

This is a simple and straight-forward guide to speaker replacement, and so I am going to start out by strongly recommending – and assuming – something pretty important:

In this guide I will explain how to replace the existing speakers with the same size and number of new speakers, or at least speakers that are close enough in size that you don’t need to make any real modifications.

We may be tempted to get bigger, better speakers, or to venture forth into the “high-end” world of component speakers – that is, speakers with separate high-frequency tweeters which must be located and installed separately, and sometimes other separate speakers as well, like additional midrange or woofer drivers.

We also might think it is a good idea to change the location of our speakers.

But we run into a couple of, if not problems, at least strong considerations here:

Getting speakers that are radically different in size (or sometimes even just a bit different) or a speaker system with additional component speakers, can require much, much more work – and can even force you to make permanent changes to your car, which for classic cars may be a really bad idea and for any car is a big job.

And actually changing the location of speakers can be even a bigger job, requiring not just alterations to door frames or back deck frames but also cosmetic components like door panels – which must be done in a way that not only is acoustically correct but also looks perfect.

Whether the car is 6 hours or 6 decades old, auto manufacturers have generally taken into consideration the best speaker size and location for their cars, trucks or SUVs, based on factors like the size and layout of interior space and the space behind the speakers.

If your original speakers don’t sound great, it’s not because there aren’t enough of them, or they’re in the wrong place, but usually just because they really aren’t very good speakers, or they’re just a little tired, and replacing them with new speakers will make a huge difference.

It’s always been my experience that the best results – and by far the easiest projects – come from new speakers that are the same size, or very close, and placed in the same position.

So in order to keep this guide on how to install speakers in your car as simple, as promised, and to keep your task as easy and manageable as possible, I am going to assume that we are doing basic and direct speaker replacement – same size and same location.

What Will You Need to Replace Your Car Speakers?

First, pretty obviously I guess, you will need some new speakers. These speakers should come with a wiring harness and – if they are slightly non-standard size – some sort of adaptor template to make them fit into your car’s standard mounting space easily and without modification.

It’s super-important to check what your car already has – that is, not just what sized speakers you have in your doors and back panel, but how much space is behind them, and get speakers with the same dimensions – or, in the case of depth, or clearance, the same or less.

On Amazon, if you for example search by Car Stereo Speakers, at the top of the page you will see a link that lets you “Filter results by your vehicle.” This link will make sure that the speakers you purchase will fit your car.

Other than that, you just need to have a few basic tools on hand. You may not need to have all of these, but it is a good idea to have them available just in case.

Flat and phillips-head screwdrivers – including 90-degree offset screwdrivers
A wire cutter / stripper
Socket wrench set
Allen wrench set
Retaining Clip Remover
Panel Removal Tool
Wire Connectors
Electric drill with bits for drilling metal
LED Worklight
Magic Marker

The retaining clip remover is usually only necessary for older cars, and only then if you have to remove door panels. The panel removal tool is also, as you probably already guessed, used for removing door panels, and may not be necessary if your door speaker have easily removable grills – although a cheap panel removal tool kit can also be used to remove those grills, and it’s better to have one and not use it than not have one and need it.

You can purchase these items separately, but I have found that a nice, inexpensive tool kit for this kind of work, with tools especially designed to remove retaining clips, door panels, connector pins, rear panels, covers and a lot more, is a fantastic thing to have on hand, and will not only make your work easier, it will protect your car from damage. I use, and recommend, the inexpensive Poraxy 19 Piece Tool Kit.

Wire connectors are a simple and clever solution, and I strongly recommend you get some before proceeding. You should not use electrical tape for wire connections, because it can, and will, become undone because of constant vibrations and the heat inside a car – especially in the space behind the speakers.

How to Install New Speakers in your Car

There are three main sections below – you might need all three, or you can simply click on these links and go to the appropriate section.

How to Install Car Door Speakers
How to Install Car Rear Deck Speakers
How to Install Car Dash Speakers

How to Replace Car Door Speakers

Before we even start, disconnect your car’s battery. I know, we are just replacing speakers, and so it’s an easy – if silly and not necessarily true – assumption that we won’t come anywhere near hot power wires, but please just trust me and disconnect the battery!

Check to see if the car’s original speaker grills easily come off. They will either pry off or might have screws holding them in place – it’s possible the screws are hidden by some sort of plastic cosmetic cap, so if you see small round caps in the four corners very carefully try to pry them off with a flat-head screwdriver to reveal the mounting screws.

If the speaker is connected with a wiring harness, you can simply unsnap the harness. If the wire is soldered onto the speaker, or hard-crimped, you may have to cut and strip the wire – but remember to cut it as close to the speaker’s terminal as possible, so you still have plenty of length to work with.

Get the new speaker and connect it to the existing wire – your new speakers should come with their own wiring harness, but if the car’s speaker wires terminate in a harness it will easily snap onto those new speakers – just slide the harness onto the flat metal speaker connectors, careful to connect the positive or + wire to the positive or + spade and negative to negative.

If your car’s speaker existing speaker cable ends in bare wires, you will need to connect them to the supplied speaker harness – the way of doing this can vary depending on the harness, but it is usually either a matter of:

Inserting the bare wires into the harness and securing them with a small screw, or
Connecting the car’s bare wires to the wires already coming out of the harness – here you don’t want to use electric tape, which can and will come undone, but some sort of plastic connector – I myself have the Wirefy T Tap Wire Connectors Kit, which is perfect for this job.

Then just slide the harness onto the flat metal speaker spades, not using too much force – they should slide on easily and positively. And again, make sure phase is correct – that is, connect the positive or + wire to the positive or + spade and negative to negative.

Now you can remount the speaker into the door frame. If you’ve gotten the exact same size of speaker, this is as simple as taking the old speaker out, since the holes should be in the same place.

If you have slightly different sized speakers, you still might find their metal frame, or basket, has mounting holes that will fit your door frame without modification, and if not your new speakers should have come with an adapter – it’s then a simple matter of mounting the adapter to the door frame and the speakers to the adapter.

Make sure the speaker is re-mounted as tightly and securely as possible – otherwise it will come loose over time, and the vibrations might be audible and will have a negative effect on the sound of your system.

If you ever need to drill holes into your door frame, please proceed cautiously. Don’t drill too deeply – that is, to the point that you might actually damage the car’s outside door panels!

Also, use your speaker as a drilling template, but don’t drill the holes using the speaker itself as a guide. That is, hold the speaker in place and mark the hole locations using a sharpie or any magic marker, and then remove the speaker and drill the holes.

Finally you can replace the speaker grills, and you are done!

Removing the Door Panel

You might find that your door speakers are behind grills that are not removable – often just a bunch of small acoustic holes in the door panel itself. If this is the case, you will need to remove the entire door panel, which is not nearly as big or difficult of a job as it sounds – a slow and unforced approach actually makes it – literally – a snap.

On older cars you might have to remove the window crank, and possibly the door handles or other attachments, before you proceed – on newer cars this is all normally kind of molded into the door panel itself, and it can be more easily removed.

If your older car has a crank for opening the window, this crank might be held in place by a screw, and so you can just remove the screw and then the crank, and it won’t obstruct your removal of the door panel. This is also true of any other things attached to the door, like possibly handles to pull the door closed or even ashtrays.

Sometimes the screws may be concealed by a metal or plastic cap, which can be – slowly and carefully – removed by prying it off with a flat-head screwdriver. A window crank may have a retaining pin, which is a spring clip on the stem and between the handle and the door panel, and while you can sometimes get in there and remove the clip by hand, a clip removal tool makes it a lot easier.

Once all obstructions have been removed, you can use a panel removal tool to slowly and carefully remove the door panel, which should snap off with very little effort. I always start from a bottom corner, work slowly across the bottom and then slowly up each side.

Never force the panel free, and be aware that there might well be some additional obstruction you haven’t seen or removed yet. Also, while most door panels have retaining clips holding them in place, which just snap free using the panel removal tool, some panels might have screws holding them in place – really, it’s so important to do this part of the job slowly and mindfully!

As I mentioned above, while you can purchase panel removal tools, clip removal tools and other useful or necessary bits separately, you can also just get a nice, complete toolkit of these kinds of jobs – the one I like, the Poraxy 19 Piece Tool Kit, actually costs less than those two tools by themselves.

Now that the door panel is removed, you can proceed with exactly the same steps I’ve outlined above.

After the speaker is wired and mounted in place, simply reverse the process, replacing the door panel – just as slowly, carefully and mindfully as you removed it – and replace any door handles, cranks or other attachments.

How to Replace Rear Panel Speakers

With rear panel speakers we proceed pretty much the same way we have with door speakers, but a few additional scenarios may apply:

You might simply need to remove speaker grills and replace the speaker from the top
You might need to remove the back panel, like we did with the door panels
You might need to lift the back hatch, and then replace the speakers from below
You might actually need to crawl into the trunk and replace the speakers from below

Unfortunately there are too many cars, trucks, SUVs and other vehicles out there, both old and new, for me to easily be able to tell you what is involved in your particular case, or to even make easy or helpful generalizations.

But you can check for yourself – if the back panel has obvious grills for the speakers – they will usually stick out a bit, and will often have mounting screws either visible or behind cosmetic caps, you should be able to simple pry off those grills, or unscrew them, and work easily from above – in this case, removing screws is often much easier with an offset screwdriver.

If there are no separate grills for the speakers, or you can see that the back panel is clearly a single piece, you often can pry it off just as you would a door panel.

Sometimes it is quite obvious that the back panel is not some sort of removable piece, or doesn’t have a removable cover, but is integral to the car’s frame. In this case, you will need to get into the trunk or space beneath that rear deck and work from there – hopefully with a good LED work light.

And if your car is a hatchback, lift the back door and see if the speaker panel / back deck lifts up with the hatch – if so, it’s usually a piece of cake to remove and replace the speakers from behind.

Basic Rear Deck Speaker Replacement

We’ll start with the first scenario – that your rear deck speakers have grills mounted above them, which can be removed.

Once you remove the grills, you will see the speaker driver itself, which should also be connected to the inner door frame with screws. Just remove these screws and keep them handy, and then carefully disconnect the speaker from its wiring – make sure the wiring doesn’t fall down the hole, because in some cases it can be a bit of a hassle to fish it back up and out.

Inserting the bare wires into the harness and securing them with a small screw, or
- Connecting the car’s bare wires to the wires already coming out of the harness – here you don’t want to use electric tape, which can and will come undone, but some sort of plastic connector – I myself have the Wirefy T Tap Wire Connectors Kit, which is perfect for this job.

Now you can remount the speaker into the back deck. If you’ve gotten the exact same size of speaker, this is as simple as taking the old speaker out, since the holes should be in the same place.

If you have slightly different sized speakers, you still might find their metal frame, or basket, has mounting holes that will fit your deck without modification, and if not your new speakers should have come with an adapter – it’s then a simple matter of mounting the adapter to the deck and the speakers to the adapter.

If you ever need to drill holes into your back deck, please proceed cautiously. Don’t drill too deeply – that is, to the point that you might actually damage anything beneath it you maybe can’t see!

Finally you can replace the speaker grills, and you are done!

Removing the Rear Deck Panel

If you don’t have removable speaker grills on your rear deck, it can become pretty complicated pretty quickly – not always, but with many cars the removal of the rear deck can be a lot more involved than the removal of door panels.

You might just get lucky and find that your rear deck panel snaps out, just like the car door panels. If so, and you have a panel removal tool or, even better, a cheap installation tool kit, you can remove the rear panel – slowly and carefully – and then replace the speakers just as I’ve outlined above.

On the other hand, you may need to remove pillar pieces that might be obstructing the back deck panel, remove the rear seat, shift safety belts out of the way, find mounting screws and more. If this is the case, first check to see if you can get into the trunk or space beneath the deck and work from there – in this case, a good small LED work light is your best friend. I adore my little Klein Tools LED Worklight, and use it all the time, but you can also get a nice cheaper one like the Volrex.

If not, and you are faced with the daunting reality and considerable challenge of taking apart much of the back of your car, a professional car stereo installer is your best friend – I know, this article is meant to help you avoid just that – using and paying for professional installation – but even I get a bit nervous removing rear seats and messing with safety belts.

Should Have Bought a Hatchback!

Finally, the simplest scenario of all – hatchbacks which have those cool lift-up back panels.

When you lift the hatch door, the back panel itself might lift up, and if so it is very easy to disconnect and remove the old speakers and connect and install the new ones from the back, just as I’ve outlined above.

How to Replace Dash Speakers

In the last section of this guide to easily installing new speakers in your car I’m going to talk about replacing speakers on your front dash.

Here we have two possibilities:

In most cars and in most cases these dash speakers have easily removable grills, and so the installation is simple
In some cases, however, you might have to remove the dash, or the section of the dash where the speakers are, which is, uhm, not so simple

I will cover the first scenario in detail just below, but before all that I will say that if it is the second case, and you have to remove your dashboard, this can be a bit of a job. I can’t really offer a step-by-step tutorial, since it will be a different process with different cars.

If you can remove your dash easily, you can simply follow the below steps to remove and disconnect the old speakers and reconnect and install the new ones. But if it is a bit more than an easy job you might well want to consider seeking professional help – and believe me, it is cheaper and easier all around to seek the professional help of a car stereo installation expert before proceeding than the professional help of a doctor and/or trained therapist after a weekend of blood, sweat and tears, broken dash panels, cracked windshields and slight concussions.

If it is the first case, you can usually very easily pry the speaker grills off with a flat-blade screwdriver – or again it can be even easier and safer using an inexpensive installation tool kit.

There may be screws – either visible screws or ones that are covered by a cosmetic cap or otherwise hidden – so don’t force the grill to come off, and if it doesn’t just snap off easily please stop what you’re doing and investigate further. If you’re removing screws from the top of the dash, beneath the windshield, it can be much easier with an offset screwdriver.

Once you remove the grills, you will see the speaker driver itself, which should also be connected to the inner dash frame with screws. Just remove these screws and keep them handy, and then carefully disconnect the speaker from its wiring – and make sure the wiring doesn’t fall back inside the dash!

Get the new speaker and connect it to the existing wire. Your new speakers should come with their own wiring harness, but if the car’s speaker wires terminate in a harness it will easily snap onto those new speakers – just slide the harness onto the flat metal speaker connectors, careful to connect the positive or + wire to the positive or + spade and negative to negative.

Inserting the bare wires into the harness and securing them with a small screw, or
Connecting the car’s bare wires to the wires already coming out of the harness – here you don’t want to use electric tape, which can and will come undone, but some sort of plastic connector – I myself have the Wirefy T Tap Wire Connectors Kit, which is perfect for this job.

Now you can remount the speaker into the dash. If you’ve gotten the exact same size of speaker, this is as simple as taking the old speaker out, since the holes should be in the same place.

If you have slightly different sized speakers, you still might find their metal frame, or basket, has mounting holes that will fit your dash without modification, and if not your new speakers should have come with an adapter – it’s then a simple matter of mounting the adapter to the hole in the dash and the speakers to the adapter.

If you ever need to drill holes into your dash, please proceed cautiously. Don’t drill too deeply – that is, to the point that you might actually damage anything beneath it you maybe can’t see!

Finally you can replace the speaker grills, and you are done!