Technical CD Player

[Archiew05]

Hi, my 2009 Fiat panda cd player doesn’t work, it doesn’t take in cds and says CD error. I have read solutions such as disconnecting and reconnecting the car battery but I’m not sure I’m capable of doing this, or to take the fuse out for the radio/cd system and then put it back in. In which case, how do I do that with the fuse and which fuse do I need to do it with? Any other solutions would be greatly appreciated. It has done it before and somehow fixed again but not sure how. Thank you in advance.

 

[koalar]

I doubt taking a fuse out and back in will do anything

If you want to try it just disconnect the battery negative, it acheves the same thing and easer to do, the negative is on a cam lock

Sound like a typical Google AI answer

Solution when under warranty was to take it back to fiat they changed the head unit, which kinda of points that the err is normally internal to the head unit

Retail CDs stand more of a chance than home copied one of reading successfully, clean the CD

Stripping the unit down and cleaning the laser with isopropyl and cotton buds is an option but it's success rate is fairly low

 

[koalar]

Just trying to find you a video of the negative quick. Connect back in a few minutes

 

[Archiew05]

Just trying to find you a video of the negative quick. Connect back in a few minutes

Thank you!!

 

[koalar]

This one is already open

Just push on the lever to this position

Keep you fingers away from the back when you push it open, if tight it wil give them a wack

Unlike the guy in the video

 

[Archiew05]

This one is already open
View attachment 488308

Just push on the lever to this position

View attachment 488310


Keep you fingers away from the back when you push it open, if tight it wil give them a wack

Unlike the guy in the video

Great, thank you, I’ll give this a go. Do I need that spanner tool the guy in the video has?

 

[koalar]

Nope

As long as it has the quick connect, most have post 2005, at least I haven't seen a later car without one

It's fingers only

Some can be fairly tight some are not,

 

[koalar]

As long as it's the original OEM radio it should remember it's security code

The older cassette head units don't, but does not apply here

 

[Archiew05]

As long as it's the original OEM radio it should remember it's security code

The older cassette head units don't, but does not apply here

Unfortunately, after disconnecting the negative and leaving it for 30 minutes before reconnecting, the cd player still behaves the same and displays the cd error message

 

[koalar]

Unfortunately, after disconnecting the negative and leaving it for 30 minutes before reconnecting, the cd player still behaves the same and displays the cd error message

As expected

It almost certainly an internal fault, such as a faulty laser. Miss aligned laser or dirty laser

A laser cleaning disc will not work on a slot cd so not an option

There's several options

The simplest solution would be to put your songs onto you phone

And use something like this

Which connects to the phone by Bluetooth and transmits via an empty radio channel, this always works

If your radio has USB you could put your songs on the a memory stick

Aux cable is a bit hit and miss, if you toggle the source button on the radio and you see aux come up it should be fine

Or replace the head unit

 

[Archiew05]

As expected

It almost certainly an internal fault, such as a faulty laser. Miss aligned laser or dirty laser

If a laser cleaning disc does not work, is not going to be an easy fix, and probably not worth the cost of getting it repaired

There's several options

The simplest solution would be to put your songs onto you phone

And use something like this

View attachment 488313

Which connects to the phone by Bluetooth and transmits via an empty radio channel, this always works

If your radio has USB you could put your songs on the a memory stick

Aux cable is a bit hit and miss, if you toggle the source button on the radio and you see aux come up it should be fine

Or replace the head unit

Thank you for your help, will look into it further

 

[koalar]

@rmjbn1

Uses a similar adaptor to the one I posted they are still active on the forum and will probably give you the pros and cons of going down this route


Unfortunately a laser cleaning disc is not option with a slot loading CD player

 

[rmjbn1]

Ello
Yes, I've been using a Bluetooth FM transmitter for years now.
Suits me just fine for playing mp3s from my phone.

With a few conditions:

It picks up interference when we're in a city or sometimes from passing traffic.
Not often a problem for us out in the country, but if you're in urban areas or heavy traffic it might get annoying.
You can set the frequency, finding one that's reliably free from other broadcasts might take some time.

Due to Fiat's odd spec of lighter socket it sits quite loose and can easily lose connection if knocked

It seems strangely quiet. So I put phone volume to max, then raise the stereo volume to about 40 or so.

None of this bothers me too much because we don't use the car that often, very rarely in traffic and I don't usually listen to music in the car anyway.

It's just there for occasional long motorway slogs or if the other half feels like an early-noughties euro-trash rave Which does happen

But if you're serious about your driving tunes I'd suggest the bt transmitter is sub-optimal

 

[rmjbn1]

Stripping the unit down and cleaning the laser with isopropyl and cotton buds is an option but it's success rate is fairly low

Just as a side note I got an old PlayStation PS3 slim working again by cleaning the laser this way

All so we could watch a Luis de Funes Blu-ray we'd bought by mistake

But yeah, slot loader would make this much more difficult