I am trying to diagnose an issue for my sister, who has a stock (Pioneer) I think, CD/XM radio in her 2008 Chevy Equinox. I routinely burn her CD mixes onto either Sony, Maxell, or Memorex CD-R's.

In her previous car, the discs played just fine, but in this new SUV, they play to about the 45 minute point, and then start doing something similar to skipping, before the player eventually shows a "Disc Error" We never had this problem in the past, and my Alpine plays 'em just fine.

The Chevy techs replaced the head unit but it still has the same problem. Funny thing is, it does it only on CD-R's, and not on regular CD's from the record companies.

This is very perplexing, and I would appreciate anyone's help. It almost seems as the laser gets warmer (the longer it is on), it seems to have an effect that causes the latter tracks not to read. It doesn't do it tracks 1-10 on an 80 min CD-R.

Any ideas? Other than of course, tricking out the Equinox with higher-end stuff, which is not really an option--she's just a soccer mom who just wants the damn thing to work.

Thanks again. Carl  

Have you tried burning with other programs?

Some CD players try to recognize album art which is hidden within the song files that you select to burn. This could possible cause errors with a CD player. Some programs will allow you to select to burn the album art or not.

Other than that it sounds like it could just be a problem with chevy's current line of CD-players.

Also have you burned a CD in Audio Format (non-mp3)