Audio Systems: Car CD player humming noise, car cd player, mark levinson

Question
Dear Parke,

I listen to CD's in the car a lot. Now whenever a CD plays, there is a spinning, squeaky humming noise coming out of the player.  The radio works fine.  Sometimes the humming noise is louder than other times.  Please help.

Cheers, Michael

Answer
Hi Micheal,

 99% of the time this is a "squeak" in the bearings of the CD spindle (the thing that clamps onto the hole in the cd and spins the disc around).  Usually this is an early warning that the bearings are going to go bad and fail, but in my experience it can be several years between the first squeak and the end of life.

 Unfortunately, in a car that CD player is pretty close to your ears and on a long road trip I can only imagine how mind-numbingly annoying it is.

 Depending on what kind of CD player we're talking about, it will probably cost just as much to fix as it would to buy/upgrade to a new one (that is, if you can even find a place that still services mechanical parts in car stereos).  Especially if it's a stock CD player, I would strongly recommend you purchase an after-market replacement. For less than it would cost to replace at the dealer, you can get something much better that will probaly last longer.

 If this is a "Bose" or "Mark Levinson" liscenced car-stereo please let me know with a follow-up, as replacing these systems is much more complicated.

I wish you luck!