Our (then) three year old apparently filled our 2004 Honda Element EX's OEM CD Player with coins, some 2yrs. ago or so now. Anyone out there have any tips as to how to remove them, or any success stories in this presumably obscure scenerio? Since the OEM head unit was made by Alpine, and otherwise works well, we hate to replace it, but do miss our CD functionality on occasion.
Seems like quite an easy fix, just remove the head unit, open its case/housing and remove the coins. As long as the coins haven't caused any electrical shorts, or damaged any mechanisms, it should function fine after removing the coins.
Does the deck still function with the change inside? BTW, not sure what my kids did, but I was playing a CD on the stock deck the other day. I went to eject and it came out, then another , then another. Weird it played the 3rd one no issues.
You may be surprised just how often that actually happens.
Ive pulled more rattly decks out of cars than I could ever count. ha ha ha
If you pull it out there is a good chance you can get all the coins out with little effort, usually the top or bottom cover on the radio will come off with a couple screws, and you can just shake all the coins out. If they have been bouncing around in there for 2 years like you say then there is a fair chance that they have caused electrical issues inside from shorting across random circuits & even after removal the CD player may not work again.
Either way, you will need your radio code to unlock the radio when you hook it back up.
& it never hurts to try so give it a go.
Update: I pulled, disassembled, reassembled and reinstalled said OEM unit tonight, retrieving $1.16 USD change from within the unit, and she's fully operational again, for the first time since 4/3/2011...all in less than an hour's work! Who knew? Lol.
BTW: Anyone know what's intended to be plugged into the (only) unused, (white colored) socket on the back of my existing OEM CD/AM/FM unit?
I Googled it, but didn't see anything. My Element's the EX, so I believe she's got all the 'bells and whistles,' but I'm wondering if it was for some sort of Cassette or CD Changer add-on perhaps? If so, anyone know the model number/s of the accessory/ies?
and, since the connector is unused, there are adaptors you can plug into it and then connect to an iPod (or similar), so that the iPod can be controlled by the head unit. all wired, of course, so it may not be that interesting in this day of BT connections. but it is something you can do with the connector, now that you know it's there.
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