2004 Dodge Caravan Speakers Not Working

One of our family friends have a 2004 Dodge Caravan with 6-speaker non-Infinity system. One day it stopped working. The CD player would come on but no sound from the speakers. I checked the fuse and the wiring, everything seemed to be ok. I thought the stereo was shot so I ordered an aftermarket Sony head-unit, the vehicle-specific wiring harness and all the installation hardware. I've installed after-market units before so I know I hooked up everything properly, but still no sound from the speakers. I tested the new system with by connecting an old speaker from another car and it did worked. So I thought maybe the wiring-harness was bad. I spliced the head-unit's speaker cables directly into the car's speaker cables. Still no sound!

I also noticed that even though the vehicle has 6 speakers, the factory-unit wiring harness only had 4 wires i.e. two speakers. I'm stumped! I don't understand why the speakers aren't working or why there is only 4 wires where as the vehicle is equipped with 6 (2 in-dash, 2 in front doors, and 2 in the rear).

My guess is that there might be an amplifier somewhere between the head-unit and the speakers that is shot. That is why the factory unit wasn't working either. But everywhere I searched, the base factory unit doesn't have an amplifier. Please help!

How do I get sound from the speakers?

does it have the rear seat entertainment system?

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That vehicle would have what amounts to components in the front.
There are tweeters in the dash along with a full/mid speaker in the front doors and the 6x9s in the rear panels.
Have any of the speakers been replaced?
Shorts can cause all sorts of problems.

soundnsecurity wrote:

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does it have the rear seat entertainment system?

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No. It does not.

co_ne_dub wrote:

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That vehicle would have what amounts to components in the front.
There are tweeters in the dash along with a full/mid speaker in the front doors and the 6x9s in the rear panels.
Have any of the speakers been replaced?
Shorts can cause all sorts of problems.

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Component speakers up front make sense. But then why just 4 wires for 2 speakers?

None of the speaks have been replaced. They all look like factory units. How can all speakers stop working all at the same time because of a short? Also, a short would cause a blown fuse.

Your vehicle likely uses an OEM amplifier that has stopped working.  The four wires coming from the OEM head unit are likely the line level signal to the amplifier and are not speaker wires at all.  I don't know where the emp is for that van, but you can check with the service department at any Dodge dealer and ask.

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It looks like you may have individually amplified speakers in that van.

I have seen many times a short cause exactly what you are describing.
A short on a power line will cause a fuse to blow, on speaker leads not always.

Have you checked the wiring behind each speaker?
Test one of the suspect speakers to eliminate them as the problem.

The van should only have amplified speakers on the Infinity system, but may not say Infintiy on the door panels like some earlier models. If it does, the amp is built right on the back of the speaker for the door and rear. There is a separate fuse for the amps and that could be bad, check.

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Mike M2
Tech Manager
CS Dealer Services

So I finally got around to opening the driver's side door of the van. To my surprise, it does have the Infinity system! However, it doesn't seem to have individually amp-ed speakers. The radio didn't have any indications that its an infinity system. Here are the pictures of the factory head-unit:





Here are the pictures of the speaker. Like I said, there doesn't seem to be any amplifier on the speaker, nor anywhere inside the door:





So now that we have established that the van does have the infinity system and it does have a central amp hidden somewhere in the van, what are my options to get sound from these speakers?

the amp might be behind the glove box or under one of the back seats. i dont think that van has a center console. if there are any compartments that you can open in the back quarter panels then look in those too.

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soundnsecurity wrote:

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the amp might be behind the glove box or under one of the back seats. i dont think that van has a center console. if there are any compartments that you can open in the back quarter panels then look in those too.

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I can try to locate the amp or ask one of the service guys at the dealership to find out where it it. The question is once I find it, what is my best option?

1. Buy a new/used factory amp from a dealership/junkyard? Will it work with the aftermarket radio?

2. By-pass the factory amp and connect the Sony head-unit to the speakers directly? Will I have to run new speaker-wires? Will the infinity speakers work with an after-market unit?

I want to avoid rewiring the whole van ... plus there are 6 speakers in the van and the Sony head-unit only has 4 channel outputs. Any other suggestions?

if you want you can try to replace the factory amp if you can find one that would probably be the easiest or you can buy a cheap aftermarket amp and switch it out and that would allow you to keep all six speakers. the cheapest way would be to run speaker wires from the radio to the factory amp and bypass it but you would lose two of your speakers. you wouldnt have to run speaker wires to each speaker you can catch them all at the factory amp. if you do that you have to disconnect the speakers from the factory amp and use a battery to find out which wire goes to which speaker. before you touch the wires to a battery you need to use a multi meter to find out which pairs are actually speaker wires so theres no chance of sending power through the wrong wires and possibly blowing something up.

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If you are sure the speakers arent blown, and you find the factory amp you can almost always bypass the amp at the amp. It will have the 4 sets of speaker wires that were behind the radio in one plug along with power and ground and a few other wires. The other plug will have the speaker signals out to the speakers. Simply cut or unplug those 2 connections and make your bypass right there. So long as the wires in the door boots are solid there is no need to further rewire anything. Run the 2 left front speakers on the left front channel of the aftermarket radio and the same for the right front. Then run each back speaker on its own back channel LR on LR, RR on RR. Make sense?

If you want a little more power you can replace the infinity amp with an alpine head unit power pack KTP-445 i believe. Splice it in between the 2 factory amp connectors. Helluva lot simpler than selling a whole amp install or putting in used parts (likely to fail again).

Hope it helps!

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To master and control electricity is perfection. *evil laugh*