Ls430 01 Rear Deck Speaker Problem Mlevinson System

[Howjo]

Speaker in middle of back deck makes terrible noises. Not paying huge o.e.m. replacement cost is my goal. My plan is to have a radio specialist remove the speaker. I will obtain a kit to repair it and then do the work. Return to specialist for re installation. Please advise if this has a good chance of effecting a good long lasting repair. If not, what are the pitfalls?

[pj8708]

Hi Howard and glad your here.

You should have no problems with replacing the rear-deck sub. The problem probably is the material around the upper frame that vibrates with the rest of the cone. They just get old and brittle and either tear or pull away from the mount. If it is a small tear it can some times be repaired with glue/ adhesive. Look this repair up in the data base. There are some post with photos.

I don't know what impedance the speakers were in 2001. My guess is 4 ohms. With Lexus, it is important that the installer makes sure the speaker matches the cross-over network.

This speaker is a mess to get out. You can't remove it from the trunk. The back rest of the rear seat has to come out then the package shelf must either be taken off or sometime just pried up enough to pull the speaker out.

Since this tends to be a common problem on earlier models I would suggest doing a search of our data base for information on other members experience. I don't know from experiance, but there may be a video on "You Tube"

Let us know how it goes.

Paul

[curiousB]

This is a common problem. The foam speaker surround dries up and disintegrates.

You can just repair the surround with a bit of patience. Search this forum for speaker of sub woofer repair and you'll see more on this. I bought the repair kit on ebay for around $15 as I recall. There are good utube videos on the complete repair process as well. The hardest part is getting the speaker out of car and back in after the repair.

[Macknife]

I had the same problem on my 2003 430LS.  I looked at the possible fixes, but, if you're going to go through all that trouble, why not just replace the speaker?  My solution was to apply a bead of silicone caulk to the area where the OEM glue has failed.  I removed the cover, applied the bead of silicone with the speaker in place and let it cure.   I replaced the cover, the speaker sounds fine and the whole job took thirty minutes as opposed to a week-end.