Hi,

Is my CD changer dead??? Or is there hope? Here's what I know at this point.

We bought a used MBZ CD changer from eBay about 6 months ago on e-Bay. Good deal, seller was helpful installing and it all worked fine until just last week when it stopped playing mid-track.

Car: MZB C230 K MY: 2000
CD changer: Model: MC3010 MBZ PN (?): A 203 820 90 89
"Made in Japan" -- don't know who the OEM is, but it looks like most CD changers.

Here is how it behaves now:

If you re-load the 6-disc magazine, you can hear/watch something in the changer step from each CD to the next and then it reports "Magazine empty" on the LCD display in the head unit in the cabin. After that it will just show "Magazine empty," anytime you try to switch to the CD and it will simply stay on whatever other function was last used, as in the radio.

Only other *possibly* aberrant behavior is that I cannot get a magazine to eject when the iginition is "Off." It seems to me that before this it was possible to open the trunk and eject the magazine without turning anything on, but I may be mistaken in this. Pointing it out in case this might be a clue to someone more knowledgeable than I.

All I've been able to do is pull the unit and un-plug/re-plug in cables, wiggle them a bit. Don't have any equipment and not much knowledge on how to troubleshoot these things anyway. My past experience with a similar unit in a BMW 525 was that it was cost-prohibitive to repair them and cost-prohibitive to buy a new one! Aftermarket units are, of course much cheaper, but I think you lose the connection to the head unit.

Hoping there might be an easy fix, but want to also hear what other alternatives there might be. It's really nice to have a changer in the car, which is why we bought in the first place, of course!

Any tips, pointers, advice gladly welcomed, and thanks in advance.

Stephen Porter
Los Angeles, CA

 

I have the same problem with my 2006 C230 Sport. Just bought the car and found out the CD changer is no worky on the way home. The digital display reads no CDC even though the magazine is fully loaded with 6 discs. It cycles through each disc as if it is loading but will not respond beyond that point. Does anyone have a fix for this aside from the obvious answer?