Guide: Accessing the rear speakers in your Intrigue

[Tobey]

So you want to replace the rear speakers in your Oldsmobile Intrigue? Simple, just pry the speaker grilles off using a flathead screwdriver, right?
Nope, the grilles are attached to the deck on the backside using metal rings which lock by digging into plastic pegs on the grilles.
There ain't no gettin' them suckers off without breaking everything.

Okay, so how do you do it then? First, you must remove the rear seat (that's right).


At the front of the bottom cushion you'll find two plastic tabs with rings on them. Gently pull them towards the front of the car
while lifting the cushion (don't break them, or else you're in for lots more fun). You can do one side at a time.


It should come right out.

If not, you may need to take a screw driver and push the metal clips on the cushion back a little. They may be slightly
bent from people using the seat. At this point, you may want to vacuum up / sterilize the crap you find under the
cushion, especially if you have kids (...is that my TV remote??).


Next, you'll have to remove the back cushion. To do this, you need to remove two nuts using a 10mm socket-wrench.


Now, pull the bottom end of the cushion off of the bolts, and slide the entire thing up. You may have to lift one side of the cushion, then go around the car to the other side and lift...and repeat.


It takes a little bit of effort, but it will eventually come off.

Now the fun part: removing the rear deck. It's actually not quite as difficult as you would think...


First, you need to remove the 3 plastic clips on the front (left, center, and right). These can probably be pulled out with quite a bit of force, but you'll
end up doing a lot of damage to the carpet around them. It's not worth the aggravation and time, so I recommend
you just clip the heads off. You can order replacement clips extremely cheap here. Although you have to buy 30 at a time, it's still
cheaper than buying 3 from a dealer...



Use a good sharp pair of cutters and slip them under the head of the clip and snip it off.



The side trim panels have little plastic tabs which slide into slots in the rear deck panel.



To get around these, simply push down on the deck near the tabs, then push in on the trim panel.
This will free the deck from those tabs.


Now you need to gently bend both of the side flaps inward.
Just bend them enough to clear the side trim panel; any more you risk cracking the plastic trim ring around the seatbelts.
Now slip both of the seatbelts out of the trim rings.


If you are feeling brave, stick your arm up under the center of the deck (and pray that you don't feel something move...)
and gently lift it up while pulling the whole thing towards you. It should come quietly, but the insulation will get hooked on
the speakers as you pull it out. The insulation will hold the whole thing back, so you need to be sure to feel around and keep
all of it up and out of the way.


Before you can remove it from the car, you must disconnect the brake light cable located on the left side.


You're done...with that part anyway. Now you can begin your speaker installation. Be sure to test the crap out of the speakers before putting everything back together.
You probably don't want to have to do this again...

[Morpheus_P]

That guide is simply the BEST.. I truly thank the creator of that.

[LittleHoov]

Completely random, what year is your car? The bracket that holds the top portion of the seat in place is completely different looking on mine. Its the same 10mm bolt, but I have a much bigger piece of steel.

Also, some cars will have the issue of fold down seats to deal with. if you have fold down seats you will need to fold each side down and remove 2 10mm bolts from the exposed bracket. You will also need to remove the safety cable bracket from the trunk so that the cable can come out with the seat.

Good work on the guide.

[Tobey]

That's weird, because we both have the same year.

And thank you!

[LittleHoov]

could be because i have the fold down seats i guess, maybe they wanted to make the bottom stronger because the top portion isnt as solid? Crap who knows.

[remark123]

LittleHoov, you've hit the nail on the head. That is exactly why the brackets are different, due to the increased load in a frontal impact on the rear cushion, usually because of objects in the trunk that would tend to try to obey the laws of physics in a crash... I witnessed many a crash test at the Proving Grounds in Milford when I worked for GM. I was always amazed at the destructive power of even a small weight representing luggage in a crash.

Mark

[aghopkins]

Great guide; I am planning on upgrading my speakers in the near future so I am sure that I will use it. I wish my Intrigue was as clean as yours (and I don't even have kids!)

[Tobey]

Heh, thanks. I try to vaccum it as often as I can.

By the way, I replaced my speakers with a pair of Infinity Kappa 692.7i's. They are aboslutely amazing. Mids and highs are excellent. And even with the stock head-unit, the amount of bass these things can pump out will nearly rattle the car apart!

And no, I wasn't crazy enough to pay $170 for a stupid pair of speakers (although they're almost worth it). You can get them brand new off ebay for 70-80 bucks.

[harmankardon35]

HOLY $HIT all that for speakers....lol....I remember the old GM's that had a simple bracket with a sping clip and when you undid that the entire speaker just fell out. I cant beleive they made it such an ordeal. Good thing most intrigues come with fairly decent speakers from the factory. Ill have to remember not to blow mine..

[LittleHoov]

Meh, its not all that hard really, just looks like a pain. With a drill and not having to search for the right tools I bet most folks could have the whole seat portion out in 5 minutes or less.

[Tobey]

Yeah, when I first found out this is what it took to access the speakers, I almost considered not replacing them at all. But once you do it, it's really no worse than ripping the door panels off to get to the fronts. But I still don't know why they didn't make them accessible from the trunk, it would have been SO easy for them to do. I guess they were just really proud of their speakers and didn't want anyone replacing them...

I don't know, I think you're missing out harmankardon35! These Infinity's make the stockers sound like tin-cans. The difference is amazing.

[LittleHoov]

Yeah, my Pioneer speakers were on the lower end of the scale when I bought them a couple years ago, so Im sure they are relics by now. But I noticed a good improvement with the stock head unit that got even better when I put the Eclipse unit in. The stock speakers werent horrible, but theres room for improvement.

All this talk is making me want to replace my speakers again haha.

[harmankardon35]

well im using the entire factory bose system with an aftermarket alpine headunit...so I can say this set up sounds better than it sounded in my old car with no factory amp and good MTX speakers. Another problem i run into is factory bose speakers run at 1 or 2 ohms, so replacing them with a regular 4 ohm speaker would mean the factory bose amp would put out only half the power. If I bypass the amp, then the factory speakers will usually fry (or overheat) most headunits because they run at 2 ohms..so i would have to replace all my speakers and bypass the amp wich I cant see being easy without a wiring diagram for the bose amp...I still cant find one lol

[phewop118]

I really want the wiring diagram for the bose amp too. I think I'm going to get a Pioner Nav, so it would be nice to see what's going on with the wiring and see if maybe I can bypass the amp for the front speakers and use the HU's amp for them, while maintaining the bose amp for the 2-2ohm subs in parallel, which become a 1 ohm load in the rear (which would kill any other amp).

[harmankardon35]

if you give the amp a power source from the new headunits remote turn on, and hook up the amp ground that comes in the aftermarket harness, you can hook up a headunit just as you normally would. One thing I noticed is it has good stereo sound when the fader is in the center, but if you fade to right or left the amp tends to freak out and get really quiet...obviously because the factory headunit usses some other method of fading left to right (remote electrical signal to turn down or up the amps channels)....so if you are like most people and like all rour balance/faders set neutral (center) it sounds pretty good. Surprisingly clean sound (not typical for intigrating factory amps in most cars)