Casette deck error in cold weather

[yazny]

I have a 2002 New Beetle Sport with the stock Monsoon sound system. I've discovered, recently, that my casette deck will not work when the temperature gets cold. I park my car in my garage overnight and the temperature drops into the 30Fs and 40Fs, and when I start it up in the morning and stick a tape in, I get "Tape LOAD" and then after a second or two "Tape ERROR" and the tape ejects. I can do this multiple times and I always the "Tape ERROR" message and then it ejects. However, once the inside of the car warms up, the tape deck will start working with no problems.

My question is, is there anything I can do to try and fix this without tearing the whole head unit out?

At some point I will probably buy an iPod adapter and get rid of the CD changer in the trunk (I don't use it) so right now the tape deck is the only way for me to listen to my iPod.

Any help will be greatly appreciated!

[JenBug]

My tape deck does this too...I don't think there is a fix I just wait until my Bug warms up...blasting the hot air/defrost helps speed it up sometimes!

[yazny]

Thanks for the reply. Yeah, I do that too but it is kind of a pain. At least I'm not the only one with this problem.

Maybe I should have asked for an iPod adapter for Christmas

[lojasmo]

My CD changer stopped working just before my battery died. Prior to that, I would get brief CD changer error messages when I had several electrical options running (Seat heater, rear defrost, fan)