[zetaxi165]

Lately some of my MP3 CDs are not being recognised by the audio player (error message - unsupported format in drive).

These are the same MP3 CDs that used to work earlier.

Now, I have to keep ejecting and reloading them (for the in-dash player) until they are read.

This happens occasionally with the CD changer as well.

Took this in to the service centre and the SA tells me that only original CDs will be read.

This I seems to be a load of crap.

Has anyone else faced this issue?

[CurlyFatAngry]

Can't help you there, but try posting in the right forum. Audio.

[Red.k]

At what speed do you burn your CD's? I had this problem a few years ago in my WRX. It stopped happening when I started burning my CD's at the slowest speed.

[kuvesh]

i find that some of my burned mp3 cds start skipping or they take longer than normal to load after being left in the player for a few weeks. must be something to do with the burned cd deteriorating over time after being left in the car

[stimpy]

It has nothing to do with the speed you burn or the media you use. What program are you using to burn the mp3 cd's? I'm going to bet it's just the default windows burner.

If so, download Nero or Roxio and this will fix your issue.

I was having the same problem and narrowed it down.

[doggiedog]

It wasn't in a BMW but in my G35, after a while my MP3 CDs stopped being read and in fact got stuck in the changer.

I took it to the dealer who told me it was a common problem with burned CDs. He told me that if you do not use actual music CDs or Sony audio CD-Rs the changer would fail and jam. I thought he was FOS but he explained that Sony audio CD-Rs are thinner than regular CD-Rs. I tried it out and it has worked perfectly since.

[shinchjjang]

This also happens to me occasionally..

I will follow above advices and try to burn it at a slower speed. (I do use Nero Express to burn my CDs)

[ejazbmw]

can we play data cds in our cars?

[stimpy]

Yes... in other words, it's an mp3 player.

[BK]

FWIW, I have better luck burning at a slow speed, too. I just burn at 1x now, and they all work. The built-in Windows XP CD-R utility works fine to make the CD, just tell it you're making a non-HiMAT data CD. The mp3 tag info for artist and song show up in iDrive. Make sure you're using 44.1 kHz and not 48 kHz or some other sample rate. I think some very low and variable bit rates may be unsupported, but the typical 128 or 192 work just fine.

I find the CD player is really finicky with CD-Rs, and if there's just a little scratch, it may give up on it. In the end, CD-Rs are so damn cheap, just burn another.

[ejazbmw]

i think itunes is pretty good never made a bad cd yet, and if your importing songs from a cd just switch it to mpeg instead of acc