I have a stock head unit on my 98 pro, I'm going to be swapping it with a better mp3 hu, but for now i have to live with this one. It works perfectly normal, except for the CD player, hich acts up like crazy, one day it will play CDs just fine, go to every track and play imediatly, other days it will take it like 5 min before storting the cd, and it might or might not get through the whole CD, if it doesn't it takes forever to start again. And even other days it jsut refuses to play anything. Plus it has a liking for certain CD-rs more then oters for some strange reason, it will take imation over memorex, and such.

I have no clue what is wrong, but I don't want to be stuck listining to crap radio stations while driving, especially since the only good station closed about a month ago. Any ideas on why this is happening and how to fix it.

 

Some CD players are fickle over CDRs. I would stick to the brand that works, and also try burning at a lower speed.

Does it do this with normal CDs also?

Sometimes it is as simple as fog on the player or the laser lens. Sounds ridiculous, I know - but what happens is the player and CD get very cold. Then the player starts and it begins to warm up internally. The internal heat acting on a cold lens or disc causes condensation - just like a cold soda can in a warm room. This can foul the best of players - in fact, my own player (aftermarket) did this just today.

Just FYI - I have heard plenty of these type of complaints about the stock player, so you are not alone.

Maybe do a search and see if anyone else came up with any solutions.

~HH

 

I agree with HH.
Try cleaning the CD lense and use the brand of CDRs that don't give you much problems.

 

do the lens cleaning CDs work at all with these players, or should I take it apart for cleaning?

It might be fog, at least that was my first guess, and it owuld make sense, except it seems to have trouble playing CDs even after the car has been warmed up inside, and when it was relativly warm outside to, and other times it will play straight off the start when it's really freezing outside. I can't imagine a dirty lense either, becasue once it starts playing it goes just fine, no breaks no nothing, almost seems as if the laser had trouble getting to the tracks initially, as if the motor that moves it wasn't working right. I had a CD-ROM drive in my comp where the actuall "belt" that connected the motor to the gears of the laser tray get stretched so much where it refused to move at certain times, it just span the motor with nothing.

Thanks, any more help, or if someone can point me to a thread where someone fixed this would be appreciated.