Help diagnosing/replacing a car stereo

[Internetlad]

I own a 2005 Dodge Stratus, and recently have been having an issue with it. The stock CD player is crap, it's always had issues where it will 'eat' the disc and refuse to give it back unless you bash a bottle or the palm of your hand under the dash. I assume the disc just gets caught on the lip of the player or some ****, whatever. That's not the issue.

Recently i've been driving a different vehicle and my wife has been driving it for the past several months. I took it for a ride one way and about halfway through the cd, you could hear a very audible *tch tch tch* sound like the cd was rubbing on every turn of the disc. It gets progressively worse until about 2/3 of the way through the disc it simply refuses to play and ejects the disc.

Honestly, I don't care much about the quality of the player, I'm not an audiophile, but I do like to listen to jams when we're on a roadtrip.

I think one of the speakers in the back is blown out. I had a bottle of (don't judge me) hair gel back in there when I was like 18 and the sun cooked it and it leaked through the weird mat carpet thing, and into the speaker. It works intermittently, but will occasionally "buzz" or "vibrate" and really throw off the audio.

There's damage on the door and front bumper from when my wife backed into a pole/hit a bird, not on the same occasion., so it's not like it's a fancy car, It's a daily driver family sedan, and we bag drive it pretty hard.

Question 1: Is anybody familiar with this or a similar issue and could reccommend a fix? I have experience disassembling standard computer equipment and would be comfortable pulling apart the car stereo as it's probably not unlike most other consumer electronics and optical drives in the way it's built. I'm a bit of a tinkerer and if it saves 50 bucks, sure i'll go for it.

Question 2: Is it worth it to replace the potentially blown speakers with better quality ones? Like I said, it's a family car so we're not playing thumping baselines at 103 decibels, just something to pass the time on road trips.

Question 3: Assuming it's not worth it/impossible to repair the car stereo, What model would be suggested to replace it? I've seen most of the high end models go for 200 bucks, but I don't need anything like that. All we ever do is listen to burnt CDs and SOMETIMES the radio. Very rarely. We don't have ipods that we want to hook up via audio in, etc. If it came with that function, i'd be happy enough.


Some prices I have in mind:

Stereo itself: 50-100 bucks.

Speakers: (Pardon me if I don't know exactly what size they are, I've done exactly squat with car audio before) Google shows that i've got 4 6x9 speakers in my car. 2 in the front doors, and 2 in the back. Only one is blown out and I don't need anything fancy. Should I replace the one, the two in the back or all 4?

Is it feasible to replace all the speakers myself for ~100 bucks?

I'm mostly interested in price/performance. I don't need the highest end stuff. I have a computer with an i5 2500k, not an i7 for bragging rights, you know?

If it sounds good and is a good value for the price, that's what I want. If the 200 dollars is worth 100 dollars more than the 100 dollar version (IE over twice as good for the features I want) i'll buy it.

TL;DR What are the best value car stereo and speaker set that you know of, and is it feasible for a car audio first-timer to install themself?



EDIT:

How does this unit look

http://www.crutchfield.com/p_1302400UB/Pioneer-DEH-2400UB.html

What are the "free installation tools" like a spudger and a screwdriver?

[tjcaustin]

Hey this is something I know a lot about.  Gogo job vision!

Question 1:  It sounds like the actual motor has some kind of fatigue that only becomes apparent as it warms up, I'd vote for "easier to replace" than try to attempt repairs.
Question 2: I always say it's good to replace speakers simply because you're going to have a speaker that can take more abuse (power) and sound better because of better materials used. I'll speak more of recommendations shortly.
Question 3: KISS - http://www.crutchfield.com/p_158GT260MP/Sony-CDX-GT260MP.html?tp=5684

Speaker stuff: My suggestion is to replace the front speakers (because that's where you sit, that's where the upgraded speaker will do best) and move those speakers to the rear.  Replace both or just the broken one and keep the second as spare, there's not much difference there. 

It would be fairly difficult to replace 4 speakers for 100 and be happy with the sound, so I'd recommend planning just spending 70-100 on fronts.  With most dodge vehicles of that year, you usually have to build a spacer/trim ring for the new speaker to fit in the factory hole as there's not an enormous amount of space before it hits the window as it tries to roll down and dodge making the mounting area for the speaker itself odd.  You may be able to reuse that factory bracket, but if not, a proper piece made out of 1/2" or 3/4" MDF will do the trick.  If you don't have woodworking equipment or access to it, most car electronics installation places will build or have something usable available for the $10 - 30 range, but walk out if they want much more than that.

Speaker recommendations:
6x9 -http://www.crutchfield.com/p_158GT6937A/Sony-Xpl-d-XS-GT6937A.html?tp=105
or - http://www.sonicelectronix.com/item_43533_Focal-PC-690.html (if it were me, especially with the $90 discount, there's no choice besides the focal.)

[tjcaustin]

Oh, be sure to get the proper kit, harness and antenna adapter to make everything fit and look proper.

Also, why do I keep thinking you live in Dallas or at least Texas?

[Internetlad]

I live in wyoming, and i'm from Canada. I"ve never even been to texas

I got on the horn with the crutchfield chat support, guys are slick.

They told me to look at speakers http://www.crutchfield.com/p_130TSA6964/Pioneer-TS-A6964R.html and he said that the deck I was looking at was "solid"

I'm not sure if they work on commission so they might be upselling a bit. I'm sure at this point anything would be better than the 7 year old deck and speakers i'm running.

Don't want to sink TOO much into it, hell the whole car is worth maybe 2 grand.

[tjcaustin]

Those Pioneers are solid as well.  As far as I know, Crutchfield is pure info with no commission.  But they do an insane amount of consumer R&D and are solid on the info.

[Internetlad]

I've heard nothing but good things about crutchfeild.

We have a Vann's brick-and-mortar in Billings, MT. Is it worth it to do all this work myself or just buy/get it installed there?

One other thing I noticed is that the pioneer I listed in OP comes with the 15 dollar "installation kit"

is that necessary/worth it considering the whole unit is like 10 bucks and the proposed value of the "kit" is 15?


EDIT: Another thing is that on the crutchfield site, it keeps putting my quantity of speakers as 3. Not 2 or 4 but 3. Like 3 is the default. I'm pretty sure there are only 4 in my car. 2 front and 2 rear.

What's the deal there?

EDIT 2: Are the speakers sold in pairs? Is the 80 bucks for 2 of them or just 1?

[tjcaustin]

I've heard nothing but good things about crutchfeild.

We have a Vann's brick-and-mortar in Billings, MT. Is it worth it to do all this work myself or just buy/get it installed there?

One other thing I noticed is that the pioneer I listed in OP comes with the 15 dollar "installation kit"

is that necessary/worth it considering the whole unit is like 10 bucks and the proposed value of the "kit" is 15?


EDIT: Another thing is that on the crutchfield site, it keeps putting my quantity of speakers as 3. Not 2 or 4 but 3. Like 3 is the default. I'm pretty sure there are only 4 in my car. 2 front and 2 rear.

What's the deal there?

EDIT 2: Are the speakers sold in pairs? Is the 80 bucks for 2 of them or just 1?

Depends on what they charge for labor.  The place I work charged $85/hour, which is a bit steep to me.

The speaker install kit they're talking about is a plug adapter so you don't have to cut any wires to install the new speakers, I always recommend it for radios, not so much on speakers.  The radio install kit/harness/ant adapter are necessary, however.

No clue on the speaker thing, that's kinda weird.  The only thing I can think of would be they're saying you have a tweeter in the dash, speaker in door and another in rear deck and for some reason only counting one side.

Speakers are generally sold in pairs and 80 is for a pair.

[Internetlad]

Thanks for the help! I'll talk to my wife about it. She probably wont' be too thrilled to spend ~160 on car speakers but we do at the very least need a new stereo.

[tjcaustin]

Well, like I said, you don't have to replace all four, you can just replace the fronts and swap them to the rear and fix the problem just as easy.  Unless that 160 is speakers and radio.

[Internetlad]

TBH It seems like kind of a pain to do all that work to have the exact same speakers that were already in the vehicle still in the vehicle, just in a different place. Maybe it's not, maybe i'm just being a whiner, but i'd rather do all or nothing. The issue with the speaker is intermittent so sometimes it sounds fine (for stock) and sometimes it sounds really bleary.

On top of that, we're fielding 2 kids, car payments, bills and rent on a 2 bedroom house, and my wife isn't working. A penny saved is a penny earned, so she might just say the stereo only. I dunno.