any hope to recover CDs from flooded car?

My 2006 and 2009 have been flooded out. (Thanks, Harvey!) I know on my home CD/DVD players, there's a pinhole to stick a, well, a pin, in, to force out stuck CDs. Given that these units hold 6 discs each, I assume I'm SOL?

If I've learned anything from reading this forum, it's that anything can be taken apart.
And then, most things can be reassembled.
If the head unit is fried, then, don't worry about breaking it by taking it apart to retrieve your CDs.
If the car is totaled, then you don't even have to be careful removing said head unit.

phreaddy said:

I assume I'm SOL?

Click to expand...

Not necessarily. How deep was the water? In other words, was the CD player itself under water? If yes, your best bet is (as stated above) probably to remove the radio and tear it apart to get your CDs. If the water was that deep, the car should be totaled. If the CD player was not under water, power it on and try to eject the CDs. Who knows, it might work, and it is certainly worth a try.

Have Fun!

Don

P.S. What were your buyback/emissions fix plans for the '09? A buyback offer from VW might be a nice bargaining chip when negotiating with the insurance company as to value.

Are you selling the car? Insurance?

It seems odd to me that there are 2 totaled cars, probably a house that is under 4 feet of water, total loss of household items, and we are discussing how to get some CD's out of a dead radio. Then again who am I to even bring that up.

So is there someone out there that can give some instructions on how to take the radio apart. I too have a dead radio, and it so happens there are a few CD's in this thing that will be difficult to replace, or what I consider classic, ie first pressings, or rare works of art that are were not widely distributed to begin with. I have a large hammer, and I am willing to use it, but there are allot of things in the radio that if beat on in the incorrect direction would damage my treasured audio gems.

I disassembled a 3-disc from a Honda CRV once, and it lived to play again. It wasn't my first choice of things to do that evening, but it helped out a friend who didn't have loads of $$$ and was driving a vehicle borrowed from a family member.

If anyone really doesn't feel comfortable doing the extraction on their player, I'm sure we can work out some sort of bartering bargain. My wife's 6-disc recently had the display go grey where you really can't read most of it. I have her factory original in the garage, with bad buttons and a good display, and I've been meaning to graft the two together. Learning how to dismantle yours while extracting your CD's might give me the knowledge I need to dismantle the two I have and make one working one...