Cleaning Satnav DVD drive

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I am having trouble with the factory satnav reading the DVD properly. Most of the time, it says that the disc is unreadable. Sometimes it would work. I think it is a dirty laser.

I have a DVD cleaning disc that I used for my home DVD players. Unfortunately, it contains playable video, which the satnav DVD drive would not recognise. So the head of the DVD drive does not travel far enough to the area where there are brushes on the uderside of the disc which cleans the laser.

Has anyone had success in cleaning the laser head?

Currently I prefer using Tomtom loaded on my ASUS PDA as I also have Oziexplorer loaded on it. However, the PDA normally lives in our other car and sometimes, I'm in the Prado and may need an impromptu satnav guide but the silly thing won't read the disc. I have checked for scratches and tried reading the DVD on my laptop and there are no problems.

Last resort is removing the unit and opening it up.

[Guest Close Guest]

Re: Cleaning Satnav DVD drive

Mine is doing the same. Toyota replaced it last August, and are looking at it again at next service...

[Stevo Member Find all posts View Profile Close Stevo]

Re: Cleaning Satnav DVD drive

Thanks Guys
but has anyone removed the drivers seat
cheers Stevo

[Guest Close Guest]

Re: Cleaning Satnav DVD drive

I had a good look around previously but there doesn't appear to be a need to remove the driver's seat. From memory, there are a couple of bolts on the front and rear of the DVD unit. So sliding the seat all the way back and all the way fwd should get you access to the bolts. You may need a ratchet spanner though (although this is from memory).

Haven't had a need to pull the unit apart since burning a new V16 disc and the problem didn't occur. The problem occurred with V15. I burnt a 2nd disc and it was still the same. Then V16 came along and I burnt it with my new laptop. So it could be the way the disc was burnt or the spec of dust got dislodged.

[Stevo Member Find all posts View Profile Close Stevo]

Re: Cleaning Satnav DVD drive

Sorry for the delay in responding, I am travelling north west coast in Wa and have some probs with internet reception, will have a real good luck under the drivers seat soon, I am still running version 14 which up till last week was perfect, so will remove the player and I will give the laser a good clean
cheers Stevo

[Stevo Member Find all posts View Profile Close Stevo]

Re: Cleaning Satnav DVD drive

have I had some fun...
decided to pull out the dvd player under the drivers seat, could only see 2 small brass screws at the front so unscrewed these and the player was still attached to the floor so I removed the drivers seat (not at all difficult) and had a very close look at the player and the cover, it took a while before I realised the black cover is actually glued to the floor under the foam supports!!!! so out it came, I then disconnected the power which I later found out removed all my previous waypoints!!
so the fun begins, inside the player is 2 circuit boards which have to come out to get to the disc player, I finally got to the player which I could not take apart because there are 4 screws holding it all together which would not come out no matter how many different screw drivers I used...and even then I could not see the laser at all which I intended to clean so reluctantly I put everything all back together again and used double sided tape to hold the cover to the floor pan, powered up and still the GPS would only work intermittently, so after 2 hours of frustration I am back where I started and being in a city that I am not familiar with is not making me happy but thank God my $100.00 Tevion gps is helping me out ...so the moral to this story is...leave the bloody thing alone unless you really do know what you are doing!