I have an 54' plate Transit van which is fitted with a 4000 RDS Radio/Cassette. Today I bought a cheap 6000RDS Radio/CD Player. I swopped them over this evening, the unit size and wiring seemed to be identicle, the radio works fine. I think I can here the CD spinning but there is no sound and after a short time an CD ERROR message with E12 is shown on the screen. Do you think it is a faulty unit or isn't the Transit van wiring compatable.

in theory, it should work with just the power cables connect (as in power up, play CDs, although you won't be able to hear it etc)
as such, i'd say its faulty. does the radio work, and can you hear that ok?

Yes the radio is fine it's just the CD not playing.

yeah, so if you can hear the radio, speakers and power are wired up right, and stuff, the CD players knackered i reckon

Thanks for that, I will take it back in the morning.

ford stereos provided the plugs fit they will work. have done it in several cars/vans

E11 or E15 internal fault see dealer
E12 clean disc & try again , if error still shows see dealer
E14 ambient temp to hot,unit will not work till cooled
E16 there is an eject fault ,see dealer

If you have cleaned the CD, then take it back.

Older CD players just cannot see some modern cd‘s and they really struggle with computer generated discs. you can get round the problem by buying. low write speed discs 8x not higher. 16x are a real problem.

[Edited on 12/7/12 by snowy2]