I have a 97 f 150 and the driver's side rear speaker doesn't work. I've replaced it and it still doesn't work. Any ideas?

To be fair: If I turn the volume wide open, and turn all the other speakers off, I can barely hear sound coming from it.

 

pull speaker out again try it with a known working source like your house receiver see what happens if it works there then you need to get a little further into your system wiring from door to your head unit and your head unit itself
you may have lost the output amplification stage for that for that channel on your HU

 

I'll agree with 2088bob on this one. You might want to take this opportunity to buy a better head unit, if that really turns out to be the problem. Nothing motivates upgrades like something broken!

 

Great. What is a head unit, and where can I buy one, and how much does it cost?

 

head unit or HU refers to the radio unit in your dash if you go shopping there are literally 100's to chose from from really cheap to really expensive

 

If you would like recommendations there are plenty of good brands suggested by people on this board.

My biggest recommendation is that if you don't know a lot about head units (aka Decks) aim to spend about $200. All your decks will sound pretty well the same from $200 to about $600. The difference is the features offered, so make your choice based on what you need.

Also, a new deck (head unit/radio/whatever) will improve the overall sound of your stereo drastically, even with the stock speakers still in place.

 

i just finished installing a pioneer DEH p6700mp which i bought off ebay for 139.00 in my truck so far i am very pleased about a month ago i installed an alpine 9856 in my oldest daugthers car also a very nice HU
now this next statement may get me in some hot water but alot of my youngest daughters friends have sony equipment in their cars it seems and i stress the word seems that i am hearing alot of complaints from them about skipping and generally the equipment screwing up you can take that for whatever it is worth and i am a newbie at this car audio so i by no means consider myself an expert on the subject just relating the facts as i am hearing them and it is just more than one of them that i hear bitching so having said that i hope i did not step on too many toes after all these are just the recommendations of a green horn

and i second what Rage said about a new deck improving the sound of even the stock speakers i went with that route when i first installed my system

 

You're right to bash sony. For instance, my buddy David can't hook up his 1000/1 amp to the remote wire from the deck, because Sony made the remote so weak it will melt after an hour or two and doesn't work properly to begin with. Instead, he has it hooked up to a switch, still sitting in the trunk of his car, so until we get it moved to the dash it's a real PIA for him