How To Remove Front Speakers from a 2007 Toyota Corolla S

 

Tools needed:

3 Flathead screwdrivers, one short & fat (6-8 inch shaft), the other long & skinny (8-12 inch shaft), one tiny (e.g. for eyeglass repair)

1 Phillips-head screwdriver

10mm wrench (socket wrench is ideal)

Power drill with 1/8" drill bit (not required, but really helps)

 

Procedure:

1. Open up one of the front side doors (I started on the passenger side):



Locate the little square cover in the middle of the door handle:



This is just a flap that covers one of the retaining screws. Pry up the side closest to the lock (with the notch cut out for this purpose) using the tiny flathead (I didn't actually have such a tool, so I just carefully used the point of a knife... but a tiny flathead would work very nicely). Push it out of your way (but don't remove it... the piece is permanently attached to the interior on one side), and use your phillips-head screwdriver to remove the retaining screw.



2. Using a flathead screwdriver, pry up around the armrest:



and remove:



Continue prying around the door lock/window control panel:



Disconnect the cables, and remove.



Finally, using the phillips-head screwdriver, remove the two retaining screws around the armrest.



3. Now comes the tricky part. Take a deep breath! Using firm pressure (and not too much muscle), carefully pry up the cover on the tweeter (behind the side-view mirror) with your skinny flathead:



and remove.



Then, use the same maneuver around the perimeter of the door panel.









Once all 8 of the clips have been popped out, lift the panel straight up (along the window), and it should come free. Set it aside.



4. You now should have access to both of the components in the font speaker system. Remove the wiring connector for each speaker, and let the wires hang. Use the 10mm wrench to remove the tweeter assembly:



and remove the tweeter by unscrewing the phillips-head screw behind the metal bracket.



The woofers, however, are a bit more difficult to remove. For this, you will have to develop your own technique. Feel free to destroy the metal rivets connecting the plastic retainer to the door body - presumably, you are going to remove these speakers for good, and will have to drill new holes for the fasteners that come with your new pair.

If it helps, my technique was as follows: Drill out rivets with 1/8" power drill, pry up with flathead, curse a little, pry some more, and finish off with pliers.





Congratulations! Your stock components are gone.

Some notes:

• Toyota does not use a crossover in this system. Install some components with a crossover, and you will experience audio spatialization as you never thought possible.


• When buying speakers, make sure they are actually 7" in diameter. I bought some Polk db6750s that claimed to be 7", but ended up being 6 3/4". Believe me, that extra 1/4" makes all the difference in the world! It wasn't a deal-breaker, but took a little creativity to make them fit.


• The tweeter enclosures are a really tight fit, and don't allow you much room to play. Since there wasn't enough space to mount the real retainers that came with my 6750s, I just reinstalled the metal bracket from Toyota (nothing attached), put my tweeter up against it, and quickly slapped the cover back on. This happens to provide just the right amount of pressure to keep it place without rattling, but only time will tell if this is a permanent solution.

That's all, folks! Enjoy your new rig.

 

Special thanks to jpaoli's post on CarSpace for helping me through this!

How To Remove Rear Speakers from a 2007 Toyota Corolla S

 

Tools needed:

2 Flathead screwdrivers, one short & fat (6-8 inch shaft), the other long & skinny (8-12 inch shaft)

1 Phillips-head screwdriver

10mm wrench (socket wrench is ideal)

 

Procedure:

1. Open the trunk:



Fold down the rear seats by tugging on the left & right levers:

and pulling the headrests toward the front of the car:



2. You have now exposed a plastic panel behind the rear seats (top right of the picture above). There are 7 plastic screws & grommets here - remove them all with your phillips-head screwdriver:



The panel should now be loose. It is actually two pieces of plastic held together by a little plastic clip in the middle:



Disconnect the pieces from each other, and just let them hang there.



3. Next, partially remove the rubber weather stripping from around the rear doors. Note that you do not need to remove the entire strip - only the part in the upper back corner. I did this by first prying it up with a short flathead screwdriver:



and then peeling it off with my fingers:



This is the extent of what needs to be removed:



Do this around both rear doors.

4. Now that the weather stripping is gone, the upper rear panels may be removed. Pry up the white plastic clips around each panel with a flathead screwdriver:



and firmly pull them off:



After all of the plastic clips have been disengaged, slide the panels toward the front of the car, and lift them off. Do not pull them toward the opposite door, because there are two plastic guides behind each panel that can easily snap. When the panels are gone, you will end up with a rear that looks something like this:



5. Now it is time to remove the rear dash, in order to gain access to the speakers. Lift up the front lip, and peer underneath. You should see a few white plastic clips (the same ones as before), which are the only fasteners securing the panel. Using your flathead screwdriver, pry up as many of the clips as you can see.



You won't get all of them, however... some are hidden in the back. So, this is the tricky part: using both hands, with firm and steady pressure pull straight up on the panel until you feel the remaining clips release.



Pull the freed panel toward the front of the car, and let it hang out of the way:



6. With the rear dash panel removed, the rear speakers should now be exposed:



Disconnect each wire lead at its junction:



Using the 10mm [socket] wrench, remove the four screws from the perimeter of the metal speaker mount:



You should now be able to remove the speakers by pulling them straight up and out of the mounting holes.

 

Congratulations! You are now free of your stock rear speakers. Put some high-quality 6x9s in their place... you don't want to have to do this again. ;-)

 

Special thanks to jpaoli's post on CarSpace for helping me through this!