Hey, just picked up a stock cd player out of a SSEi in the junk yard. Radio and all controls work fine, but when I pop a cd in, it sits, and then reverts back to the radio and it only shows ERROR on the display. No code #.
Also, will these play CD-R'*?

No, the earlier cd players will NOT play cd-rs, as my friend as an old Vette zr-1 (i know, jealous) with the cd player and it won't play his burnt cds. The error message sounds like the same thing that happened with my 'burban. What you need to do is go out to best buy and look for a cd player lens cleaning kit, and follow the instructions. That'* my best guess, but I have heard that those cd players are not the most reliable...

I went back out and tore the cd portion all apart. Didn't find anything out of the ordinary. Lens was clean. So, I put it half back together and popped a cd in it. It will start to spool up, then I will get a 1 on the display and then it spools back down and the 1 disappears. At one point in time, it did read my CD-R and heard about 1 second of Metallica. Another thing thats weird, I have to turn the radio off to eject the cd. To put one in, I have to turn the radio off, insert the cd part way in, then turn the radio on. Waste of $36 today.