cyboriax

Because of the lack of good radio stations, and the lack of an aux input - hence no xm radio, I use my in-dash cd-changer a lot. I have had my RX330 for well over a year, constantly playing CD's the whole time. A couple of days ago, the CD-Changer started giving me Error 4's. Pushing any buttons on the cd-player, besides radio, did not do anything. The only way to recover from this error 4 was to completely turn the car off, hence cutting the power from the cd-changer, and turning the car back on. Then the cd-changer would spring back to life and start changing cd's and play. The easiest way to reproduce my problem was to go to disc 6, play the last 3 tracks, and when it changes, it would jam with an error 4.

Now my salesman on Len Stoler Lexus of Maryland said that it was because I used CD-r's and that the manual said that the cd-changer does not support cd-r's. Well, I downloaded the pdf version of the manual, did a key-word search for CD-r, and only came up with (1) only use 12 cm. Cd's (with no mention of thickness of disc, and (2) CD-r's may not be playable. No where did it mention that it would jam the cd-changer.

Flipping to a more logical side, why would Lexus, with a 2004 model car, not include a cd player capable of playing cd-rs? This is the 21st century, and other cars already have XM-radio, iPods, etc., and our lexus RX330 cannot support any of this. Are they saying that I cannot use anything I burn and I must use only PRINTED CD's? I think this is abs. bull ****.

*breathe*... Okay, sorry about that. I would really appreciate if you people would comment on this. I think my salesman was just full of **** when he said this to me. He didn't even know what error 4 meant!! He thought it meant that disc 4 had an error!! Geez. Thanks in advance!

Husker4the

It seems pretty ridiculous that it won't accept cd-r's ... especially with all the legal download sites these days!

chatrathi

cyboriax:
Totally understand your frustration! Some ideas (you may have already tried them!):

a. Do you think one particular CD is causing this issue? For example, try shuffling the CDs around to see if a bad track on one particular disc is causing the changer to flake out

b. Try using a different burning software - just to eliminate another variable from the equation

c. Try using some different media. While DVDs are more sensitive to physical media variations, it's it not unheard of CD changers to prefer a particular brand

I have an 2002 RX300 (well, OK, my wife has it, but I get to sit in it sometimes ), and have close to 50-60 CD-Rs that all play well in it. Therefore I doubt that the RX330 would take you back from a capability perspective.

Good Luck and let us know if you are able to resolve the issue!

-chatrathi

rxdriver

My 330's CD changer always has CD-R's in it. It's worked fine for almost 12 months.
I even started using those "Vinyl CD-R's" by Verbatim that look and feel like vinyl 45's on the label side. I thought that if anything might jam the mechanism, that would. No problem.

I've burned CD's with Windows Media Player 8, 9, and Roxio Easy CD 6, and they all play fine. However, none of them will write text (disc title / track title) to the disc in a format the player will read. If someone has figured out how to label discs / tracks such that the title displays while the disc is playing, please post!

bioart

Your dealer is clueless... CDRs burned as audio cd's should play on any drive... especially all modern ones.

For the text, you need to set it up as CD-TEXT (different than just labelling the tracks, I believe it is an option on most programs)

Art

cyboriax

Thanks for understanding!! To answer your excelent questions:

a. I replaced all the CDs with different cd-r's. Even after doing this, it's always the 6th one giving me trouble. This is not to say that it's the only slot that's giving me trouble, the other slots, 1 through 5, also report error 4, but randomly.

b. The CDrs are produced from both PC and Mac. Thus not only different software, but hardware as well.

c. The CDrs are a mixture of verbatin, sony, tdk, etc....

My service rep. ordered a replacement. Hopefully it will fix everything. Thank you all for your support!! Really really appreciate it.

-Sonny-

XZLR8

I've never had a problem with CD-Rs in either Lexus, but I have noticed that they don't eject quite as easily as regular CDs. I mentioned this when BSing with one of the salesmen one day and was told that I shouldn't put adhesive labels on my CD-Rs because they have had trouble with that causing the changers to eventually jam. He even mentioned Lexus not being too eager to pay for new changers when the problem was caused by CD-R labeling.

He may not know what he's talking about either, but I thought I'd pass that along. Do you have labels on your CD-Rs?

HarrierAWD

It could be either a burn software setting issue or a mechanical issue in the CD player...

Check the settings in your software. You need to "close" the disc after burning so that the CD player knows it has reached the end. "Closing" the disc means that you cannot add more data/audio to the same CD/R once burned.

Bring your CD/Rs to the dealership. Play them in an RX330 in the showroom and see if it produces the same problem.

Lil4X

Moved this thread to the A-V forum. Let's see if we can get the experts to chime in here. My own limited experience is primarily on the production side of the disc process, but we've learned a few lessons that may be useful.

We burn and label (NEATO paper, matte finish) our own CD-Rs and have thus far had no problems. We've used Napster's software as well as Nero - with excellent results. Some of our first efforts were burned on "bargain brand" ($.09) CDs, but our newer CDs are on Taiyo Yudens we buy in bulk (600 disc minimum), more than most hobbyists would have use for. The T-Ys are a little pricey ($.32), but are outstanding quality discs, slightly thicker and more rigid than the cheaper discs. No problems yet with either, although the T-Ys feel stronger and more durable.

I'm also burning demo SVCDs and DVDs for the RSES on T-Y products, after a few cheap CDs and "store brand" DVDs. Results have been good, with no "coasters" resulting from anything but operator error. In our business, we burn 50 to 300 CDs, SVCDs, and DVDs for our clients per month - so far without a failure - using TEAC and Pioneer burners and the T-Y discs.

While most component CD and DVD players are tray-loaded, I was a little concerned about the slot-loading drives in our RX peeling the labels from the disc - until I tried to peel off a mis-placed label. Impossible. We are considering going to a ink-jet printer for our disc products, but have not as yet seen a good reason to do so.

Letsride

Moving from the classifieds.....

Lil4X

What a dummy! I couldn't hit the side of a barn even when moving a thread. Thanx Letsride for the re-re-direct!!

jcg

Did you try any "store bought" CD's to see if they also cause the problem.

I've used CD-R's that I burned in a 2000RX and a 2004RX and never had a problem.

cyboriax

I don't use labels on my cd's.... I just write on them using a cd-pen... :-) Another thing I failed to mention was that these cd's had been playing in my cd-changer for over a year! I don't really change my cd's that much as you can tell. And for a year, they've had no issues. It's just recently that they've been acting up. :-)

Thank you everyone for your detailed replies!!

rxdriver

bioart - Thanks for the pointer on CD-TEXT. I haven't tried that... it's an option that has to be turned on in Roxio's tools, and it's not available in Windows Media Player.

Cobra V

the problem definitely is the software you're using to burn. it has nothing to do with it being CD-R's, as realistically, a cd player can not tell the difference between a regular cd and a burned cd.