Oh no! You broke my stereo!

May 15, 2006 6:52 AM

My twenty month old jammed three cds into my car cd player. The eject button is less than useless. What is the best way to recover them?

The front of the stereo flips down to expose the cd-rom. It is a JVC and was not original to the car.

posted by Apoch to Technology (10 answers total)

Needlenose pliers and a flashlight?

Oh, and car seats aren't just for safety. :)
posted by jellicle at 7:04 AM on May 15, 2006

Response by poster: Won't the pliers scratch the cds?

The car was parked. She was running loose while waiting for her sister to get out of school.
posted by Apoch at 7:07 AM on May 15, 2006

The CDs are probably a loss anyway. Even if you could get them out without scratching them, its likely they were scratched when your daughter shoved them in there.

If there is any portion of the CDs that sticks out of the slot, just try and pull it out (obviously). If not, then I think your only shot might be to remove the stereo from the car (which shouldn't be too hard, given that it's not original to the car) and disassmble the cover. At that point, removing the CDs should be straightforward.

One other thing - by jamming three CDs into a space designed for one, she might have damaged the laser-read head, in which case the whole thing is a loss.
posted by thewittyname at 7:32 AM on May 15, 2006

I have done numerous "repairs" like this to some home equipment, but never a car system. My guess would be that you will probably have to remove it from the dash and take it apart to get the CD's out.
posted by internal at 8:11 AM on May 15, 2006

My daughter has done similar things to my 5-disc CD/DVD player. The solution was to take the entire thing apart. The CDs were a total loss. Sorry that I don't have better news.
posted by Ostara at 8:32 AM on May 15, 2006

Use another CD to pry them out.
posted by JekPorkins at 10:31 AM on May 15, 2006

I had a stuck CD in my car stereo once. I used tweezers to grab at the CD while I pressed the eject button. It took a few tries, and I had to bend the edge of the tweezers to fit, but I did get the CD eventually. (CD and stereo were both none the worse for wear, but it doesn't sound good for yours...)
posted by SuperSquirrel at 11:05 AM on May 15, 2006

Oh, on preview: I tried needlenose pliers first, but they were too big and inflexible. I was able to bend the tweezers to make fit easier, which I wasn't able to do with the pliers I had.
posted by SuperSquirrel at 11:07 AM on May 15, 2006

Computer CD-rom drives often have a small hole for a paperclip which works like a manual eject. Some slot-loaders (e.g. Apple Powerbooks) have the hole as part of the slot, on the left or right, but you can't see them. Might be worth trying to track down a service manual for the JVC.
posted by cogat at 3:44 PM on May 15, 2006

The suggestions are all good. I just have a story. My then 3-year-old pushed a 2nd VHS tape into the slot while the first was still in it. When I took it to the repair shop, they told me that that was impossible. Trouble is, no one told that to my 3-year-old.

The tapes and the player were a total loss.
posted by yclipse at 8:14 PM on May 15, 2006