Kicker speaker tailgate mod

73Blazer · Jan 22, 2024

I saw something from the engineers at kicker that it was designed this way to avoid drawing too much current. You can change the amp and speakers if you'd like but it will likely run down your battery. Unfortunately bigger/ better sound requires more power. They don't want complaints of dead batteries while using a factory option I guess.

desertpanther · Feb 1, 2024

jonlsu said:
I kept having my phone disconnect from the radio and connecting to the kicker speaker while I was driving down the road.
The kill switch for the speaker/tailgate being up I guess wasn’t working properly.

Anyway opened it up, cut the yellow wire and added a power switch for the unit.
Took about 30 mins.

My work around was setting it to AUX instead of bluetooth and that seems to be working for me.

Like2Detail · Feb 2, 2024

desertpanther said:
My work around was setting it to AUX instead of bluetooth and that seems to be working for me.

I haven't messed with mine but also hate how it auto plays when the tailgate is opened. You're saying that setting to Aux makes it retain that source and I'd have to manually choose Bluetooth when wanting to use it? I'm good with that for sure. I wish it would just remember the power off and power on.

desertpanther · Feb 2, 2024

Like2Detail said:
I haven't messed with mine but also hate how it auto plays when the tailgate is opened. You're saying that setting to Aux makes it retain that source and I'd have to manually choose Bluetooth when wanting to use it? I'm good with that for sure. I wish it would just remember the power off and power on.

That has been my experience with it. I was tired of it connecting to the system every time i used the tailgate.

SmittysAT4 · May 7, 2026

My 2025 Carbon Pro has it and its pretty loud and sounds decent. I am currently looking into attempting to add some bass to it but it doesn't look like an easy task so far. Looking into adding a separate powered subwoofer, just getting the audio output is the challenge. The jury still out........