You guys have been great with all this advice...i will try to take some pictures tomorrow when my daughter gets back with the car...any futher information or pics are greatly apreciated as well.

I had the old clarion unit in my boat do the same thing,,,, had to take it apart to get the case out.

Bought a replacement unit,,, they are cheap enough.

Now there is a question,,,, fords use clarion,,,, who does Pontiac use?

That i dont know off hand...again i will check it out more tomorrow when i get home from school...my daughter should be here for me to investigate further.

The Bonneville has a unit made by Pioneer.

Here are the pictures I took. The first ones are of the CDX with the magazine removed. More than anything, just for interest. There probably isn't enough detail here to help you determine if something is misaligned or damaged.








Here are some shots of the 12 disc magazine.






Finally, here is a video of what should occur when unloading and loading the magazine. Sorry, the video quality isn't super great but should get the information across.

I have yet to have a chance to check anything with the car...my daughters and my schedule have not coincided very well lately..LOL but by looking at the pics that you posted i know that the magazine is still in there...now i guess it is a matter of getting it out to see what the problem is...i will have a better chance tomorrow unless she is home early tonight

did you just buy the car or is the changer just now having problems? being an 02 if its the original unit its had a good life and probably needs to be replaced... this assuming its the old/original unit and was used alot... my changer in my old car lasted about 5 yrs and died and my friends camaro had a similar if not the same pioneer changer in his camaro that was an 01 and it died shortly after he bought it in 08...
not saying yours IS broken but it is on the table and if it is... *parts guy at gm dealership* your looking at $552.10 tax and all out the door buying one brand new, so check the local junk yards or see if anyone in the forum has one if you look at replacing it.

also just a thought... IF you can do it yourself, or have someone that can, try to pull the unit and make sure cable has a firm connection, its usually a circular set of pins and if its not flush on all you can get a problem... just thoughts and info to assist

-TL

we just bought the car in august 08...I have no idea if it is the original changer or how often it was used..i just know at this time that when we open it the magazine does not eject. Its not a big deal if we dont get it fixed cause my daughter is content to just change the cds in the head unit or uses her ipod...was just curious if i could figure out what might be wrong with it

These are available relatively inexpensively on eBay. If you had access to a Tech 2 you'd be able to find out how many hours it'* been used (as well as things like load/unload errors, focus errors, etc). It may be repairable, depends on what turns out to be wrong. The connector on these is not round and does have a locking tab so I really doubt this is the problem. Since you get messages and a CD stack icon when you close the door you have power and data communications. The only other connections are for audio and therefore given the symptoms pretty much rules out a connection problem.

There are only 8 wires connected to the changer via a flat (10 cavity) in-line style connector and are for (not in the this order):

Power
Ground
Class 2 Serial Data
Class 2 Serial Data
Audio Common (-)
Left Audio (+)
Right Audio (+)
Drain (shield)

I'm having the same problem; CD magazine won't eject, light is on;
ensuring wiring is secure is great suggestion, but i'll continue to watch the discussion to see if anyone has figured out a way to manually eject the magazine.

THANKS!