I picked up some speakers and repop grills for my kick panels. I understand that pulling the panels is not easy. Can the holes be cut and speakers installed with the panels in place? I think I can fish the wire in without removing them.
I would say that you certainly could cut the hole without removing the panel but I don't know that you would be best served doing that. I removed one kick panel (passenger) and honestly it wasn't that bad. There are some templates you can find with a little research that show exactly where to cut. I suppose depending on your speaker you can adjust as necessary but you will want to be very close to that. Having the room behind the panel is important.
While I have no personal experience with the aftermarket kick panels designed for speakers I have heard that fitment was poor.
I finally got up the courage to try the speaker installation with the kickpanels in place. I did a little on-line research and found some pictures where the speakers are typically positioned. I laid out what I expected to be the center location of the speaker on my kickpanel and cut an undersized hole with a 2" hole saw. The 2" hole allowed me enough access to see what structure I had to deal with behind the kickpanel, but was small enough to allow me to adjust the center of the final hole as needed. I cut the final hole with a small cutting bit on a little battery router. It was actually very quick and easy.
I thought I'd post a couple pictures to try to show the location for someone else trying to tackle this.
They look good. I did the panels on my friends. We took the passenger side off. It wasn't too bad. On the driver side we got brave. I used the template as a guide and cut them with a dremel. I did them a little small and then adjusted as necessary. It was pretty clean and easy. Getting the wire in was no issue at all.