Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Troubleshooting Intermittant speaker problem

The car: 99 SE Duratec with the factory speakers and CD player.

The problem: driver's front speaker cuts out intermittantly. When it cuts out, it doesn't completely go quiet - it just loses an unquantifiable amount of volume, say around 90ish% or so.

I took the door apart and poked around the speaker but found nothing out of the ordinary. I was expecting to find a loose connection but no amount of poking and prodding could make the speaker cut out repeatably. It seems to have a mind of its own.

Any ideas?

Did you note if the window was down? I had a problem with my '95. The window was comming down on the wires for the speaker, it took a good long time to figure out what the heck was going on. You may want to check that.

Swap the driver and passenger front speakers first. If the problem is still happening on the driver side it is probably not the speaker. Good luck.

No, it is not window position related.

I will prolly have to swap the two speakers, as suggested. I was hoping to not do that - no need to rip apart 2 doors, right?

Sometime you can 'feel' a bad voice coil in a speaker by cranking it up medium-high and then with the speaker cradled in both hands, press gently and gradually down on the inner portion of the cone with your thumbs. (Don't poke a hole in the cone!) If the voice coil is cooked, you will feel a spot where it cuts in/out. Other than this test, swapping speakers is a good test...

Time to upgrade to a decent head unit/speakers.

So any suggestions on some 6x8s for the fronts?

Rules:
The new speakers must be direct plug ins.
I want to keep the stock CD player and stereo.
I don't want a thumping subwoofer setup. I just don't care about my stereo that much.

Honestly, I'd like something just a little nicer than stock... no need to go overboard here.

Any idea how much a direct Ford replacement is? I couldn't find a P/N online.

What is the maximum amount you want to pay(I notice you only want something better than stock, nothing fancy)?

Do you want a direct drop in, or would you be able to create a 6x8" plate out of wood if needed? (5.25" and 6.5" would fit in a 6x8" plate, giving you more choices and still keep the speaker in stock location)

You should be able to get a pair of decent 5.25/6.5/5x7/6x8 speakers for $40-50.

Go over to Crutchfield and get either a set of 6"x8" Pioneer 3-ways or Kenwood equivalents. I don't know the exact model number but the direct bolt-in Pioneer 3-ways run about $99. You probably will have to buy a pair of patch cords to connect the Pioneers to the factory wiring harness; Crutchfield has these patch cords.

I swapped-out all the factory speakers on my 95 Contour with earlier versions of the Pioneer 3-ways while leaving the factory cassette/amp alone. The sound is a little richer and there is slightly better bass response but it's definitely not boomy or a thumper; not enough power to do that.

I am starting to have the same front speaker signal dropout problem and it may be the stereo head unit (connections inside the doors are still good) because ramping the volume up and down clears the problem. There is a remote chance that the factory wiring harness is fraying internally where the harness passes from the car body to the door (too much flex wear from opening/closing the door). Front doors always see more wear than back doors. A loose connection anywhere in the wiring harness can cause this problem.

1995 Contour SE
1999 Contour SVT