JEEP GRAND CHEROKEE SUBWOOFER ENCLOSURE

Building a subwoofer into an SUV can be a bigger challenge than it looks. Most of them are full of wide open space, but the real trick to a professional installation is to add the bass response the client needs while retaining as much of that storage space as possible. In this case we utilized the storage compartment underneath the driver seat. There is a deep dish compartment under each side, but the passenger side was occupied with the car’s battery. Instead of building a big block that gets into the way of rear storage, we used up this dead space.

The first step was removing the plastic dish under the seat. This opened up a much larger area, and by using only wood we were able to capture .6 cubic feet of air space. We could have gotten more with a fiberglass mold and installed a 10″ subwoofer, but that would put this install over budget and behind schedule. The enclosure was sealed air tight, sharp corners rounded over as we always do, and wrapped in matching OEM style carpet. The subwoofer of choice here was the Kenwood eXcelon shallow 8″ subwoofer.

You are probably thinking an 8″ sub won’t cut it in an SUV… not the case this time. This 8″ Kenwood really delivers with only 250 watts of power going to it. In fact, we had to back the bass down quite a bit because of all the rattles in the truck. The dome lights were doing the Harlem Shake and the sunglass holder had to be coated with a layer of sound damping to control vibrations.

In the end, we had another satisfied client who had the sound she wanted, and only gave up a little bit of dead space she didn’t know was there to begin with.