Hi everyone. I started having problems this summer with my cd changer. It was raining up in the mountains and I turned on the defroster. After that, my cd changer would not "read" my disks. I had Subaru check it during my 30,000 mile tune-up and the cd changer worked fine. As long as the car is cold, or I am not using the defroster, it works great. Then the other day I had the defroster on and all but disks 2, 5, and 6 worked. Is there a short? My warranty is over so the dealer told me it would be $635 to replace it. Then the service guy gave me a name of someone that might be able to fix it and/or go to a car stereo shop for a new one. He said he wouldn't buy it from the dealer. At least he was nice about that. Any thoughts?

you can get another for about $150 off ebay, maybe your discs are in less than perfect condition and the defroster is causing problems with the laser. id say either get a replacement off ebay or if your looking to spend a few hundred, get a real nice double-din stacker with more power, better sound and preamp outputs if you decide to install some subs later.

Usually,,,,, when you report a potential problem while the car is under warranty, (even if they didn't find any problem) and it re-occurs after the warranty expires, they should cover the repair! I had similar experiences on more than one occasion where the dealer honored / grandfathered the repair.

It is possible that the CD changer and the defrost share the same ground or some sort of power.