themccoy14

I have to say that my GS400 is among the easiest cars to replace the speakers on that I've ever done... I used to do stereo fabrication on the side when I lived in Saint Louis for a number of years so I wasn't worried about it being challenging just time consuming. I researched a while to see if anyone had done a write up on how to replace them being that I don't have a ton of time to work on my car with my work schedule and I wanted to make it as quick as possible. I just picked up a cheap pair of sony 5 1/4" 3-way speakers as I found that it would require the least amount of fabrication being that I wanted to reuse the factory pods in the doors. It was a pretty easy process overall:
1) Remove the 5 screws around the outside of the door panel, one in the door vent opening, one under the center armrest on the door, and the last behind the door handle cup which pops off with little effort from a flathead screwdriver to reveal the screw
2) Pull the panel away from the door around the bottom and sides to remove the plastic retainers behind the door panel, then lift up on the panel to unseat it from the top of the door
3) Pop the door handle cable and door lock cable off of their seats and remove the ends of the cables from the handle/lock
4) Unplug courtesy light, window switches and lock switches (the panel should be free and ready to lay aside)
5) Unscrew the factory 4" speaker and remove terminals (my new speaker had the same terminals so I could just plug them right in after the housing had been modified)
6) I used a set of low profile wire clippers and a pair of pliers to trim away the excess plastic around the factory speaker holes which made a reasonably neat opening; trim until the new speaker fits snug and flush in the factory location
7) I used a fire resistant liquid gasket between my new speaker and the factory housing to get a good seal and secured the speaker with four 2" long sheet metal screws screwed directly into the pod wherever the new speaker mounting location happened to be
8) I used 1/2" wide cut-to-length peel-and-stick foam weatherstripping around both the pod "port" opening as well as the speaker itself.

I'm not out to build the craziest stereo that anyone has ever seen nor do I claim to be an expert but I am extremely happy with my results. The clarity is head and shoulders above what the factory speaker produced. I used a speaker with a tweeter setup in the center because I didn't want to mess with a component setup (which, admittedly would have been the better way to go but far more complicated). I've heard that using the stock pods with larger speakers yield drony mids but mine sounds very clear and crisp for being as low cost as it was... Thank my wife for visiting her family today and my work for letting me off early so I could get this done. This is in no way hard to do. I am confidant that anyone with half a brain, a flathead, phillips, pliers and wire clippers can accomplish in a matter of an hour or so. I will post pictures once my wife finishes with the camera and I get a bit of time to go back over everything when the sun is out... Hope this helps those budget conscious guys out there afraid to tear apart their car for fear of Lexus' over engineering. I've found that Toyota seems to be much more forward thinking in every situation than I initially give them credit for. Perhaps this is why I work for them...

ItsYaBoy

Great posting, thanks McCoy.
was actually looking into doing this myself. If you don't mind me asking for reference, what pair of sonys did you get?