My stereo is stuck on cassette player mode - HELP!

[SC David]

This is all for a '92 BMW cassette/CD/radio that came stock in my car.

So while I was in the grocery store yesterday, my friends were in the car waiting. One of them happened to have an iPod and an adapter, so the story goes (according to them) that they put the iPod cassette in the tape deck, and (like all BMW tape decks I've experienced) the player just made weird noises but didn't work. So they pushed eject, but the tape wouldn't eject. So, being the smarties they are, they forcibly removed it. Now the tape deck thinks there is a tape inside, but there's not. No matter what buttons you push, the player will not "eject" the non-existent tape. And best of all, I can only switch between the tape player, and weather band radio. Now that I know everything there is to know about Bay Area tidal predictions, I WANT MY CD PLAYER AND AM/FM TUNER BACK!! Is there any simple solution? Will disconnecting my battery do anything, or will the player still think there is a tape in there?

[repenttokyo]

Remove the deck from the dash, open it up, the spring that tells the deck that there is a tape in it has been jammed or worked loose. It's a mechanical issue, and it's not hard to correct.

[SC David]

Thanks for the info, I'll take a look. Any additional info required on opening up the tape deck, or is it all self explanatory once it's out?

[xspeedy]

What about trying to insert / eject a cassette? Perhaps one of those cleaning cassettes as it won't have tape to get tangled up if anything goes wrong.

[SC David]

The problem is that it already thinks there is a cassette in there, so I can't put one in.

[repenttokyo]

Lots of good information in this post:

http://www.bimmernut.com/forum/showpost.php?p=315322&postcount=5

I used this to take my tape deck out, even though it was a different model. You can see how to take it apart, and what part of the mechanism is used by the tape player to think there is a tape inside.

[whiskychaser]

The problem is that it already thinks there is a cassette in there, so I can't put one in. Not familier with this particular radio, but normally you get cassette audio or radio audio. Am therefore surprised you are getting a weather program unless it swamps the receiver. Dont know how your 'friends' got the cassette out if you cant get another one in. But I would take the radio out and open it up as suggested. My guess is the carriage mechanism is out of sync or bent

[repenttokyo]

Not familier with this particular radio, but normally you get cassette audio or radio audio. Am therefore surprised you are getting a weather program unless it swamps the receiver. Dont know how your 'friends' got the cassette out if you cant get another one in. But I would take the radio out and open it up as suggested. My guess is the carriage mechanism is out of sync or bent

I manually disabled my mechanism, and as soon as I did that I only had either WB or casette - you lose the standard AM/FM radio option.

[SC David]

^ Exactly. I'm not sure who the genius is who devised this stereo, but it's pretty ridiculous that once you've put a cassette in, that's pretty much all you can listen to.