I recently purchased a 2023 Outback Wilderness and as soon as I realized how bad the speakers were I looked into replacing them. I ended up getting a Kicker component system for the front doors/tweeters and two 6.5″ coax speakers for the rear doors from Crutchfield. The install went well, not my first stereo install, the new speakers sounded great. This was a few months ago.
Since I have the speakers, I will start my car intermittently for the day and the speakers are completely disabled. No sound (although Bluetooth songs continue to play/advance on the screen). There is no on-screen volume adjustment when turning the knob. The stereo is definitely not muted, one of the first things I checked. This condition will persist after starting with multiple car starts and even disconnecting the battery for ~5 minutes.
Through trial and error, I have found that if I disconnect the battery and then disconnect the two rear speakers, then reconnect the battery and restart the car, the speakers will work again. After I play, I can plug the rear speakers back in and the stereo goes back to normal until the condition decides to happen again, which could be days or even a week. I figured maybe the head unit was detecting a short, so I took all the speakers out and dried them out and heat shrinked all the connections, checked everything for water exposure (those window seals tend to let a lot of water in the door) and everything looks great.
Of course, I could take this back to the dealer, but I think since I installed the speakers, they’ll probably tell me I’m under warranty unless it’s a head unit problem.
Has anyone else had experience with this type of problem? Any guidance?
