CD Player Repair for Dummies

Removing car CD player

Not that many people use the CD players in their vehicles — if the vehicle even has a CD player — but if you want it and it doesn't work, many an owner will prefer a DIY fix over paying a dealership half your bank account for a service call. That's probably why some poor dolt typed "DIY Car CD Player Repair" into a search engine and hit RETURN. We certainly hope that person (and whoever followed in his footsteps) got better help that the rubbish published by Oliver Hill at ItStillRuns.com.

Hill, at the time a college J-school student, did little more than a half-assed attempt to reword a post he found on some other content farm (a defunct Japanese site called kuro5hin.org). Oliver ended up with a string of problems, not least was that his source material was already junk and he didn't read through the comments to find better information. Here's some of what Oliver barfed up at eHow, where the content sat before it was niched by Leaf Group:

"If no audio is coming from the CD player, gently pull the CD player out of its holding and check the two bottom left cables going to the back of the device to make sure they are connected."

First, WTF is "its holding" and second, no way are car CD players this easy to mount and unmount. This step appears to be related to rack systems with a separate CD player. In other words, no help for car audio. Next:

"If your CD player is showing the wrong song number, make sure you aren't putting the CD in upside down."

Oliver really thinks people are dumb enough to need this help? Well, maybe he is... Next:

"If your CD player fails to accept or eject CDs, use a screwdriver to unscrew the four bolts on the outside of your player..."

Would that getting into audio components was that easy. Oh, and confidential to Oliver: you don't use a screwdriver on a "bolt." Next?

"If your CDs keep skipping, it is usually a dust build-up inside the player. "

Well, maybe: it's more likely however, that the lens is dirty than that there's a pack of dust bunnies running around...
That last was quite probably the only useful information out of the 300-plus in Oliver's little post and, to be honest, should have been step number one. Opening up the unit is... not a good idea, even if our Dumbass of the Day says it is. In fact, it's not a good idea especially if our Dumbass of the Day says to!

copyright © 2020-2023 scmrak

SE - ELECTRONICS