HELP! Faulty Factory CD Player? Or Something Else?

Alright... I LOVE my Prius! But here's the catch...

I'm about to replace my CD player for the THIRD TIME within 7500 miles. The last CD player (which I still have in at the moment) has been working great for a couple of months (minus the fact that it won't play any of the CDs burned from my Mac :x ) until today. We had just played a burned CD (burned from my boyfriend's computer) and when we switched to another CD (a store bought one), the nightmare returned. The CD player just continues to skip but not as though it is scratched... It will play two seconds then repeat the last 1.5 seconds, slowly and annoyingly making it through a track , and it will do this with EVERY CD (brand new, burned, etc.) now. This has happened with the other two players and I fear it may happen with the fourth as well unless I can get this problem resolved. Is it an internal problem? The technicians at the dealership have only sighed and replaced it without giving it any thought. I seem to be the only person experiencing this trauma. Or am I??? Is there any way to fix this???? Is my CD listening pleasure doomed???

PLEASE HELP IF YOU CAN!!!!

P.S. I don't think the burned CDs are the cause of the problems. The second player didn't even work with any CD from the get-go.

P.P.S. I have a 2005 Prius with package #4 (#4 now, but I think it was #7 or something when I ordered it last year). This does NOT have the JBL stereo system.

 

Brand spanking new CDs don't even stand a chance of being played. It does the same thing with all audio CDs. It seems to me to be more of a computer problem...somewhere. The skipping is kind of methodical, if that makes any sense. When a CD is in the player, only the track number will show; the time counter will remain at zero even when a few seconds of the skipping music have elapsed.

Perhaps I should be looking for a Toyota troubleshooting number or address or some such thing? Would that even help?

 

Nope. I don't smoke.

I'm really more inclined to believe that it is not a malfunction of the CD players... (If they are, in fact, being replaced -- and I'd hope that they have been). Unless each computer in each of these players are screwy. In that case, more people would be having these problems, I would think.

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I apologize for my limited knowledge of such matters in advance, so please excuse me if these are dumb questions:
1) To access a diagnostic screen, would I have to connect a diagnostic machine to the computer? I've gone to Auto Parts once to have them look at my computer on my old 4-Runner; is this what I should do? Or is there another nifty way of accessing it?
2) What is the MFD?

BTW, I contacted my Toyota dealership yesterday and they said that I missed "the Toyota guy" that comes once a month to look over cars with strange problems such as this. So, I would probably have to wait a month before someone can figure out what's wrong. Hmm... I think I'm going to check out another dealership in the meantime. I would really like to get this fixed before I go crazy.

 

Sorry it's been a while since I've given an update. I managed to contact Toyota and now their headquarters in Denver are working with my dealership on the problem. They originally agreed with me after seeing it that the problem was something other than the CD player. They were thinking it was the display at fault. However, now they've discussed the problem with an "audio specialist" and he thinks it's the player. ((argh)) I'm glad that I did contact Toyota directly. They've been ever so much more helpful than my dealership alone. Not only has the Toyota place in Denver been calling me and keeping me up to date on their progress, the main headquarters in California has been keeping tabs with me as well. They're keeping my "case" open until a permanent solution is found. We'll see what happens.

As for the CDs burned on my Mac: Trust me, they were burned as audio CDs. I've burned plenty in the last several years and know how the system works. They work great in every other player I've used them in. It was just a strange phenomenon that they didn't play in the Prius. Hopefully once they figure out the source of this player problem, then I won't have to worry about a thing.

 

Okay... So I just checked the diagnostics screen (thanks to DanMan32 ) and in the SYSTEM CHECK MODE, the EMV and the G/W were listed as OK. But, next to the AUDIO H/U there was a yellow CHEK by it. ?? Hmm...

It's weird... I was sitting in the car at the dealership while the "specialist" from Denver was checking out the player and the diagnostics screen was never accessed. Nor did they bother ever hooking it up to another computer (if they even do that with Priuses). Is this strange?

 

After I got to the diagnostics screen, I went to the display option and tried to do this several times and several ways, but nothing happened. :|


P.S. They ordered me a new player AND a MFD which will be replaced on Tuesday (yea!). I'll let you know what the effects are.

 

LOL, I thought that was the second step!