W204 CD Problem.

[Graham7]

Hi All,

This morning I have a problem with my CD player. The radio and Sat Nav work fine but when I switch to Disc I get a message saying "Drive Unavailable".. It is the single CD player not the multi disc version.
I realise that it may mean the player is kaput but was wondering if anyone had had this problem and if they found a fix for it.
Pic attached.
Thanks.

 

[Gazwould]

No fix from me but I have one for the state of the screen .

 

[Graham7]

It's actually a poor picture taken in poor conditions. The screen is in much better condition than it looks there.

 

[Gazwould]

They all suffer the anti reflection coating breaking down at this age .

 

[Graham7]

They all suffer the anti reflection coating breaking down at this age .

Well it could be better so I'd be grateful for your fix.
I have a Autoguard Warranty on the car so I may be able to get the disc repaired or replaced under that.

 

[markjay]

If it is indeed a mechanical issue, then you'll need to have the Audio20 unit repaired or replaced (whether under warranty or not), or just live with it (you can use a USB flash drive to play mp3 music instead).

You could try buying a lens cleaning CD off Amazon or eBay, they're inexpensive so worth trying even though I doubt they'll help much in this case.

Something else you could try is pulling the fuse for the infotainment system and giving it a cold boot (power cycling).

 

[Graham7]

If it is indeed a mechanical issue, then you'll need to have the Audio20 unit repaired or replaced (whether under warranty or not), or just live with it (you can use a USB flash drive to play mp3 music instead).

You could try buying a lens cleaning CD off Amazon or eBay, they're inexpensive so worth trying even though I doubt they'll help much in this case.

Something else you could try is pulling the fuse for the infotainment system and giving it a cold boot (power cycling).

Thanks Mark. There is a CD in the player which won't eject so I couldn't get a cleaning disc in there. It's my favourite CD too.
I'll give my local specailist a ring this morning if they are open.

 

[Graham7]

Well ya bugger!!!! After phoning round a Merc Specialist then an Auto Electrician I decide just to try the CD player one more time and it worked.
That's good news of course but I wonder what was causing it to malfunction. Anyway I will get a lens cleaning CD and run that through it and hope for the best.
Thanks for all your help peeps.

 

[FiveAlive]

If it wouldn't eject a CD, I can't imagine that the problem was a dirty lens. Sounds more mechanical, though a bit of greasing has recovered 'broken' CD players for me in the past. Getting in there to do that is a bit of a fiddle, though.

 

[Graham7]

If it wouldn't eject a CD, I can't imagine that the problem was a dirty lens. Sounds more mechanical, though a bit of greasing has recovered 'broken' CD players for me in the past. Getting in there to do that is a bit of a fiddle, though.

I agree, it sounds either mechanical or electrical but I don't fancy putting grease or oil through the "letterbox". I'll just have to see how it goes.
Putting a cleaning disc though it won't cure that problem but I doubt it has ever been done before and shouldn't do any harm.

 

[Graham7]

I thought I would post an update to this thread as I think I may have found the problem.

I still sometimes get the "drive Unavailable" message but it has been accompanied by "Power consumption too high".
I don't do a lot of miles and the car does lots of small journeys. Once or twice a week I drive a 40 mile round trip to go to my archery range. I've noticed that I only have the problem on or after short trips. On longer trips the CD drive works fine.

The stop/start function only works if the battery level is high enough, which is a normal funtion of this feature. I now believe that the CD drive works in the same way as I've seen that if the stop/start doesn't come on when I start the car that's when I get the CD message.

I'm quite happy if that is the reason but thought I would share this in case anyone else has this problem.