possible causes for car CD player to stop working?

Nothing lasts forever. 7 years is a pretty good lifetime for a CD player.

 

Try cleaning it. However, 7 years is probably the life span. I had one last 10 years, and some only 2 or 3 years. A car is a tough environment for electronics.

 

If its an older Alpine, they still service some of the older models.
I think its a flat rate of 95.00 to recondition the whole unit. Certain models are worth spending the money on.

 

In the last 7 years did you have any kids? When my DVD player stops working, it's usually because there's a slice of cheese jammed in there or like 4 DVD's crammed into the single disc player.

You could try using a lens cleaner disc. Especially if the player is in a dusty or smoky environment.

 

That really cracked me up... People with kids will fully understand

 

been there/done that lol.

 

I have a new Kenwood unit that quit playing CDs today. Screen says mechanical error, really don't want to pull it back out and mess with it.

 

You didn't do like I did one time, and put the cd in upside down did you ?
That will give an error code too

 

After some investigation I have discovered that at least on the Kenwood head units, this is a common problem. In fact, the average age of the unit before the issue is three years, this for a $375 product. Most people had a CD carriage issues, as the CD isn't loaded or unloaded properly. Slightly under half had a laser issue. Given the price of the parts and labor, it isn't worth fixing and you can buy a new deck for much less than the fix. I am not a audio guy, just want my stuff to work, but I install my own equipment. I am going with a low price (Best Buy has a Kenwood flip face for $79) unit that has a USB/MP3 player input. Just plug in a thumb drive or MP3 unit and there are no moving parts. I have a convertible, so I don't need a million dollar sound system tempting some idiot to slash my $2000 top to get to it.

 

Two words: planned obsolescence. Electronics are no longer designed to last. They are engineered to last just long enough that most people won't be totally outraged when they go belly up. Almost all electronic devices fail after a couple years, so you have to buy a replacement.

 

I just had to repair a $2000 Maytag fridge. I have learned to look up stuff on the net and you will usually find that lots of people have the same problems, and then you can learn the fix. The Maytags have a CIRCUIT BOARD exposed to moisture in the top of the fridge. They fry at about five years. The fix is a new circuit board that doesn't expose the electronics to moisture, looks like they could have seen that coming. Cost me $71 to fix, it is $440 from Maytag. My folks have a fridge in their garage that is older than I am (43) and still running.

Poor engineering, poor execution.

 

sounds like its just dead...they dont make anything like they use to...

 

I don't know, does every maker of electronic gear plan for their product to fail within a few years? Is that probable on a global scale? Do your grandparent's cd players still outlast the new ones? How much power and/or how efficient is a 40 year old refrigerator and will it make ice?

 

I fix everything I own, my BMW, my Harley, my electronics, my guitars - and I help out other folks. I don't think things are planned failures - didnt say that - to sell more products, that probably just helps your competition. I should add here that I have a economics degree and have taught it in a college setting.

What I see are two things 1) Poor engineering and poor build quality 2) Poor engineering based on some mandated regulations.

This is why a 40+ year old fridge works and makes ice and a five year old expensive one fails quickly. Consumers demand frost free now, but that takes a LOT of power to heat up the freezer enough to defrost and then quickly refreeze the contents. All appliances need to be energy start rated, so they put in a circuit board to calculate the humidity and how fast it needs to heat and cool down. That is complicated and requires electronics in a humid enviroment. They built it, saw it fail and then made a new part, pretty common in most manf. circles, we would call it BETA testing. IMHO the engineers should have seen that coming, I would have. Mean time there are thousands of complaints about this issue on the web and anyone buying this unit will probably look that up and not buy it based on the circuit board issue, which is now fixed. That doesn't help Maytag sell new units, and it helps their competition.

Now to Kenwood, this problem is well known and documented on the web. Its not just this model, but the years they were made. It was probably a mistake in construction that has now been fixed, as the newer models, that have had time to fail, have not failed in the same way. Again, I don't think Kenwood did this on purpose, as their is too much competition in the market for them to make an inferior product and survive. It appears they addressed the issue.

I collect sports cars, and motorcycles and sell them occasionaly to buy new ones. When I buy a vehicle, I will probably already know the problems it will have, as thousands of other people have found the engineering mistakes/build issues and have worked out solutions. Anything will have flaws. Sometimes it takes years to see them. Sometimes the fix makes them superior to anything else on the market.

None of this matters if you just bought a CD player/tv/car/whatever and it quits on you in a few weeks, nobody wants that.


EDITED to say to zenheretic: my grandparents didn't live long enough to own CD players, but if they had, I doubt they would have been older than my circa 1989 Pioneer CD player going strong in my shop.

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