Is it possible to install the Bose system in a 3rd gen GXE that didnt come with it? I know a lot of you guys out there would advise me not to put the sh*tty Bose in, but I have a donor car which had all 4 amps and headunit rebuilt. So it's worth it for me, since I have all necessary parts. IS IT POSSIBLE? Anyone ever done it successfully?

Would I have to swap the harnesses in the front doors and the ones for the rear speakers?

thanks

 

anything can be done, technically speaking, as long as it does not defy the laws of physics. if you feel like putting in the proper wiring, and swap all the parts over, yea, it's possible. dunno if anyone has done it, probably not, but if you have rebuild parts and that's what you want to do then do it.

 

I don't believe the GXE rear deck has holes for 6x9" speakers like the SE does.. Instead they are 6" or 6.5". You would need to wire each door and the rear to power the amps as well. It's easier to just install an aftermarket system, I know you didn't want to hear that, but that's the fact of the matter. It will sound much better as well and more versatile if you want to upgrade or swap components. You could always sell the rebuilt Bose system, I think there's quite a few members that would be interested.

 

the GXE did have Bose as an option so it is possible for the deck to be all ready for the 6x9

 

Im not so much worried about the rear deck cutouts, like i said I have a complete donor car so I can just use that rear shelf. Im only worried about the wiring. My main concern: would I have to swap the door harnesses? or are the plugs for the door speakers the same?

Thanks guys for your help/input so far...

 

I know it has been done, at least partially. When I bought my car the prevoius owner had put in half a bose system, the rear speakers where the active speakers the car came with but the fronts and deck were bose. I don't know what the wiring was like before he put in the bose but normally there is a plug where the door wiring plugs into the bose speaker pod, on my car the wires in the speaker door were soldered directly to the speaker pod. The only problem I can think of for the fronts is that the bose speaker pods have 4 wires, I don't know if the regular speakers only had two wires in the harness or if every car had the 4 harness for simplicity. I can't say anything about the rear speakers since mine didn't have them but even if you do need to run new wires for the doors it's not too hard to do.

 

Sounds like there is hope. I wonder why though the previous owner never installed the rear speakers. You probably dont know the answer to that, but I hope the answer isn't "it can't be done."

Thanks for your input...anyone else?

 

I don't know why the rears weren't installed but I do know that the rear cutouts in my car will not fit 6x9's. I had to get 6.5s with a larger lip than normal when I got new speakers. The rear speakers also bolted on differently than the bose speakers I had in a parts car, in the parts car the speakers were in a housing that mounted from underneath the shelf and in my car they mount from the top of the shelf. I never did really look at the cutouts though to see if they were different.

 

You can easily fit 6x9's rear speakers in a clarion(active speaker system) fitted 3rd gen if you use the bose speaker pods..

 

ok, i do have some options there, but again, I have a complete donor car so Ill have the correct shelf.

To rephrase my question...what wiring needs to be swapped out of the Bose donor car and into the non-bose?

 

I would honestly, run new wires. primary thing I can think of would be the amp wiring. and some simple 14-16g wire would be more than adequate for that. saves an *** load of removing parts, losing screws, etc. that comes with converting the wiring for a different system.

afaik, the connectors are teh same for the stereo (I don;t recall Sosche using one harness for Bose, and one for Clarion, but I could be mistaken)

 

the radio harness is the same for both