Expert: Cleggsan - 8/24/2009

Question
I have a 6 Disc CD player in my used 2001 Taurus that I just bought and tried to play a CD (both burned and regular commercial CDs) and it tried to read it and then spit it out saying "Bad CD" in the display. All the CDs are scratch free and play in my temperamental CD alarm clock. I was wondering how I pop the face plate off my console in the car in order to look and see what is happening.

Answer
Did the seller demonstrate the cd player was working before you bot the car??

It is likely the unit was defective before you got it.

The most common cause of this is from a weak or worn out laser diode inside the optical pickup assembly of the cd player mechanism.

The reason it comes up as a "Bad CD" is because the optical pickup is not seeing any data due to the bad laser diode.

The repair is often about the same cost as a new head unit.

You can go to www.crutchfield.com and plow through the "outfit my car" sequence in order to find out which aftermarket would be a good replacement unit.

You can find replacement radios here:

http://replacementradios.com/index.php?cPath=21_31_127

among others that can be found googling.

Hope this helps.
C