I have a standard stock CD player. Owner's manual says you can not play "burned" cd's. Is this really true? I have a ton of home made cd's and would really like to play them. Has anyone had any experience with this issue??

Zowman
2002 XE 4x4 Molten Lava
Lehigh Valley, PA

Moving to proper forum...

At the risk of sounding like a smartass, why don't you just try it & see?

I have heard some on here say that it didn't and some say that it did. My stock stereo was in my X for exactly 2 days but I tried several of my homemade goodies and they all worked.

If you use high quality CD-R's you'll probably be fine. In my experience with in-dash changers of different brands, I've found that cheap CD-R's are bad news. They can cause no play errors or jam the mechanism (I haven't proven this but Ihave a theory). Though I haven't actually taken a mocrometer to them, it seems the CD-R's are a bit thicker than regular CD's; atleast the cheapo ones I was using are. This could be what caused me jamming problems. This was in a Nakamichi in-dash changer. I came to this conclusion because that unit had never jammed before I filled it with cheap Office Depot discs AND because the Office Depot discs caused errors in my new Pioneer in-dash changer. So I refuse to put them in there. I will only put high quality audio CD-R's in my changer now and the cheapo ones go in the single player. I haven't had any problems yet doing this.

I guess my only real recommendation is to only use good quality discs and at the first sign of problems stop using them.

You have to understand that fitting a 6 disc changer into the space of a single DIN stereo (the changer is only the top half of what you see) can only be accomplished with very small parts and very precise tolerances. I don't think there is much free space for discs that are too thick or warped, or not exactly the proper diameter, or what have you.

So that's my theory and the reason i think they say not to play them. Basically, they are covering their asses so they don't have to buy you a new player everytime your CD-R's jam it up.

Makes sense Chuck. I've only ever used PNY and Sony CD-Rs. I also always make sure to not use anything with disk labels or other crap stuck to them. I label mine with a shaprie and thats all that is needed.

I use Imation brand CDs, and they've all worked perfectly.

Now put a damn CD in and go drive!

I use memorex. DO NOT USE Imation cd-r...I used them for a couple years...they will skip like crazy in certain cd players (not the X cd player though).

Never have had a problem with the TDK. 100 packs at Costco for $14.99 after rebate. Can't beat that. I just like them because they're almost all silver with very little advertising on them.

I've used Memorex, Imation, and Maxell... Now I only use Memorex. It seems as though I get better reliability than with any other...