Hello, just thought I would relay my satnav experience as I have been able to repair mine thanks to this page. My 2002 CRV satnav started giving a disc error last week, I took it to Honda who wanted £ 350 to send it away for repair ( I presume to Alpine ) with no guarantees, or £ 4468.00 to replace it - that’s right, four and a half THOUSAND pounds ! Firstly, I tried the cleaning cloth strapped to the ruler method, without success and so took the whole unit out and set to work. I followed the guide kindly provided by Craig in the 2008 posting, but had a couple of problems, firstly, I got the unit all stripped down only to find I had left the disc in and thus had to reassemble it and connect it back up in the car to get the disc out, most inconvenient ! The second, and this is what took me the most time, was actually identifying the laser lens. Eventually, by shining the torch through the top of the unit and looking through the top at the same time, I was able to locate the lens. If you have the unit laying on a flat surface with the front nearest you, the lens is nearer the centre of the unit rather than the outside edge. The lens is to the right of centre and slightly back. For anyone who has not seen one, it is small, round, made of glass and red. It looks like a drop of water if that helps. ( I knew what to look for, but just could not see it ). Once found, I was able to slide a cotton bud in from the back and to the right towards the lens whilst looking in from the top. One thing I did find was that there was no need to remove the back plate with the three tiny screws and two springs, this plate has some round holes in it, three I think, and I could quite easily fit the cotton bud through one of these. Make sure you clean the lens a number of times ( mine was filthy ) and took four goes to get it properly clean. I did not have any glasses cleaning fluid, so used some of the clear spray window cleaner. Reassembly was very straight forward with all the screws being the same size, apart from two much longer ones which hold the back plate in place by the bottom right cable connection as you look at the back. Although it has only be a day since repair, my satnav is now working as good as new.
Having followed Craig’s instructions, I found the following differences :-
1. There was no need to remove the back plate held in place with tiny screws and springs.
2. There was no need to remove the mounting brackets from either side of the unit.
3. There was no need to remove the screen.
4. I did not have a large black box to contend with.
5. There was no need to separate the DVD from the CD.
Hope this helps.
pol141, June 2009
