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Need help with stereo speaker wiring

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City
La Joya
State
NM
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United States
What I Drive
2012 Fiesta S sedan
#1
So I got 2 new speakers for my 2012 fiesta S. Only has the 2 front door speakers and two tweeters. My dad helped wire the new speakers, but now, my radio is cutting out. It will just stop working and I have to turn off my car and turn the stereo back on for it to work again.
Does anyone know what the color codes for the wiring harnesses for the front speakers are? There are 4 wires in each harness, and my dad wired it up. I'm afraid he may have wired it wrong.
 

Handy Andy

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#2
Or...using two speakers on the same circuit - might make the Impedance the radio will see to drive those speakers - to be too low, making them pull too much current and the radios output becomes unstable - so it shuts down because it got too hot or it has an overload protection kick in to keep it from blowing up.

Resetting it by shutting off the power to it lets the protection circuit release and so it works until it thinks it's going unstable again...

1739058156612.png The Door speakers and the pillar tweeter (Armrest on the top sill of the door) , use a Crossover as a band-pass filter - letting the lower tones pass into the door speaker, while the higher mid-range and upper treble range go to the tweeter - so if you "wire" directly to the speakers as a pair, the Ohmic result might make that amp refuse to drive that type of connection for the ohmic level is too low for it to work safely without damage to the speakers or the radio.

So if you changed the door speaker yet kept the tweeter ones, that might make the Speakers Impedance the radio sees, too low
 
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OP
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Messages
8
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City
La Joya
State
NM
Country
United States
What I Drive
2012 Fiesta S sedan
Thread Starter #3
So what are you saying? The wire pair my dad used to wire the speakers is incorrect? Should he have wired all 4 wires into the speaker? Because that harness has 4 wires to the OEM speaker...but since the new speakers don't have the Ford plug, my dad cut the plugs off and simply wired 2 of the 4 wires to the new speaker.
My car did not come stock with front and rear door speakers. Only the front doors. So with that being said, are any of those wires in the front doors at all for the rear doors?
 

Handy Andy

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#4
You may need to verify that those other "Free wires" are not powered by something else returning power back to the radio - or pulling power from the radio to ground.

The speaker wires are 4 in two pairs - only two wires to each speaker - a pair is used for Left side and a pair for Right side - but it provided output (at the speaker) to be used a crossover for a 2nd speaker (tweeter) (the wires are more than likely a connector wire in a Y-fashion and the tweeter handled the crossover by internal coil design. No common is shared - so don't wire the "return" wire to ground - bring it back to the radio connector - and make sure the correct wire pair is to their respective Left or Right Side
 
OP
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Messages
8
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City
La Joya
State
NM
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United States
What I Drive
2012 Fiesta S sedan
Thread Starter #5
The tweeters themselves have their own wiring harnesses. I should have taken pics while we were doing this cuz now I'm gonna have to go in and pull the door panels off again and take pics of the wires my dad used. It's not an issue I must take care of right away. I actually was thinking of just taking it to a stereo shop and have them fix it. I'm not really sure I want to attempt to pull the radio out myself from where it is and see what's what.
 

Handy Andy

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2018 Ford Fiesta SE HB
#6
Then, if you can, using an ohmmeter (DVM) try to measure and see what the ohmic value of the speaker wires are - when you measure across them before you re-hook them back up to the radio.

Loose wiring? Possible but a simple jarring over a pothole can show this - you don't seem to be having that type of problem.

Then compare that reading to what the radios install manual suggests - if the ohmic values are not in range - there's your answer - the amplifier in the radio quits because (it thinks) it's becoming unstable so it's protection kicks in to keep it from destroying your hearing.

The only other consideration is the wiring to the amp is bad but it is not a likely scenario for it comes back once you turn off the car and start it back up again.

The 3rd option is the radio is sourcing from a watched port of power from the BCM - and it may turn off after a set amount of time after startup and the radio dies from that. But if the radio is being powered by the original wiring harness, the ignition and ACC wiring being directly wired (from BCM/Ignition) to those sources will power this until the car is parked and shut off.

Else, trying running it's keep alive memory and power wires directly to the battery using the tap points on the little red connector box on the positive terminal to supply power to the radio without having to have it shut off. You need to verify that you don't have something to cut power - unless you have a watchdog Battery Minder (Battery Control System) you'd see that on the Ground cable from the battery - it's between the battery and ground point on the cable itself.
 


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