I recently bought a 2011 impreza outback sport. Little silver 5 door. I love the car. However, my thing about driving is that it always involves me cranking my music.

Even at lower sound levels [14-20] i get some rattle in the lower side of the passenger door. It only happens for certain bass notes, in the range of a G and a Bflat, mostly. Which tells me it's finding the resonant frequency of the door.

It happens on the drivers side too, but its not nearly as severe.

I took it into the dealership because I didn't pay for a car to have the damn thing rattle. They said they didn't hear a rattle at all. Which, is actually understandable, because it doesn't happen all the time. Only for certain notes. I tried to play a song for some tech guy that made it rattle a bit, and of course, the time I had someone else in the car who mattered, it didn't rattle... So i drove off, and as soon as i was out of the parking lot, bam, rattle.

 

Just wondered if anyone had a similar issue. I'm no stranger to disassembling doors and working with the speakers, but I'm worried about messing up the warranty. I want to put some new speakers in it anyways, and thought that maybe I could get it professionally done, and have them line the door with dynamat or something similar, which would solve the problem, i'm sure.

 

Or is there an idea of what to put/change inside the door that doesn't take a dramatic, warranty-destroying breakdown?

 

Thanks for any help/guidance, guys.

Or if anybody has a guide or some sort of directions to take the door panel off of this car, I'd be grateful. I could surely figure the rest out myself, I've taken doors apart before, but I've never taken the panel off of a brand new, still under warranty vehicle.

Installing new speakers won't void the warranty on the car. Just don;t break anything taking the door panels off.

These cars are fairly simple. A few screws here or there and some pop clips and it should pop right off.

The older cars are really easy at least. I can have a door panel off my car in about 30 seconds.

After looking at NASOIC,

I found this thread.

 

Which had a small guide to the disassembly of the door panels on the '09 (i think) door panels, which were -exactly- like the panels on my 2011.

 

It talks about the cause of the rattle, and suggests weather stripping to stop it. Took my door off, and after a little bit of a hassle with two pins [one behind the tweeter, and one by the door latch] it came off clean, I saw that damn box, sealed the little guy up, and got the door back on pretty cleanly. The tweeter pin is bent all to hell, but considering it came off with very little force, I think it was bent up before I even touched it. It's very solid when the door itself is back on, so I'm not worried about it.

 

Problem solved, though!

 

Now that I'm not focusing on the rattle, though, I'm very aware that I need some new speakers. I can save myself the professional install cost now that I know how to get these doors off though! Score!

While you're in there, you might consider putting a piece of dynamat or similar deadening product on the interior side of the door skin opposite the speaker magnet. If you're getting a resonance off of the door panel, the dynamat, or similar, should do a good job of stopping that.

 

Plus, 'they' say it'll increase your SPL without doing anything else.

I purchased some speakers [selection is very small for these guys, only a 2" mounting depth ]

and hushmat, by recommendation. It apparently holds better and is easier to apply. I can vouch for the application, as I know it's perforated, which makes getting rid of air bubbles a non-existent problem. That was a pain in installing dynamat on my cavalier. Not to mention you had to use a heat gun to make sure it would stay on, and it stunk up the car.

 

Needless to say, I'm excited for some good sound finally....

I want to replace the head unit, too, but I don't want a single din unit, and the double din units are crazy pricey.

You can usually fit larger speakers than what "they" say will fit with a little modification. I just crammed a set of Alpine 6-3/4" components into the doors of my 95 wagon. Crutchfield's listing said they wouldn't fit, because they don't without modification. But I cut out the speaker brackets a little and did some minor trimming on the rear door panel speaker grills and made enough room for them. And it all looks completely stock.

Yeah, thats what I was told. I actually have a set thats 2.25" being held right now, and I'm having a small-time shop do the install, as I know the guy personally, so it's being done dirt cheap [figured it would save me from messing up.... it's happened]

 

Deal was, If we got the doors off [i'm going to help with the install, too], and find that we can fit 2 7/16" speakers in there somehow. Gonna throw in a few more bucks for the pioneer D series.

 

hooooo boyyyyy

d-series installed! Oh man. Even with the stock head unit, they absolutely sing.