After much testing I have found that I can burn Sony 80min CD-R and Mitsui 74min CD-R (and some times TDK 80s will work)at 12X or 4X and get my SC816 to play them.

I have tried Kodak gold (74 and 80), Maxell, Imation, and generic brands, none of which work at all or reliably.


So far the Sony works all the time , I tried one Mitsui and it worked so I think they will work also. With the TDK 2 out of three could be read by my deck and three TDKs burn't by a friend all work, so maybe TDK is OK too.

Stay away from gold disks.


It looks like my SC816 likes blue or sliver disks (colour after burning). I use a Plextor 24/10/40A drive and burn in "disk at once mode" (4X or 12x) and no CD text.

Sony and TDK for me from now on.

BTW I went to discuss this with the service manager in town and boy did I get a lot of double talk and newspeak from him - like "why on earth did I expect the deck to play CD-Rs". Are you sure your CDs are good? I tested them in every deck at home, a friend's Pioneer and a friend's Volvo 850 with an SC816 and all the disks could be played, even the ones that my deck would not play. So the manager made a point to tell me that just because the other Volvo could play my disks and my deck could not did not indicate to him that my deck has a problem- go figure that logic. He even told me that my logic was flawed in thinking that my deck had a problem. I think Volvo knows there is a problem and are trying to put customers off rather than replace the decks.

Anyway after lots of testing I now have disks that I can play.

I think that I will dump the SC816 and replace it with a CD/MP3 player.

Anyone with advice on what types of installation kits there are that will look good in the V70?