I've just picked up my first LD player (hooray!) and at my friend's insistence I now have a Pioneer CLD-2950. No remote control but I really wanted it to play music LDs anyway.
I've had it a couple of days and it seems to be in good order. It has a neat setup where it can play regular CDs without opening the large tray (I'm sure you all know this) but I've just spotted something that I'm not too happy about.
Any CD played in the machine ends up with a greasy / oily deposit in the centre portion (where it is gripped within the mechanism). Some of this deposit is clear but now I'm seeing black in it, like ink. It seems to clean up though I've worked with oils in the past and I know that you never get rid of all of it.
I won't play any more CDs in it for now until I've had some advice but should I be concerned? Should I have it serviced and cleaned? The only local guy I know who could do this for me has proven useless in the past and still has two of my old cassette decks waiting for new rubber pinch wheels (I know, they're difficult to track down these days).
No oily deposits on the LDs at the moment so I'll continue to play them but please let me know what you think.

That don't sound right, sounds like to me someone added their own oil to the player, as there are no factory oils that Im aware of. This would mean your laser optics lenses is probably covered.
I bet someone tried to oil the the spindle motor at one time, my best Guess.

Duane....

I'm not sure about oil......but one of my players the rubber mat (gripping part) on the motor spindle, was actually sticky on the edges from being deteriated. Even after trying to clean it with alcohol it still left sticky goo on center of my cd's , and then tore a tiny bit of one of my LD labels off that stuck to it. Replacing the rubber I had work a bit to get the sticky goo off before putting a new rubber on.

So something to check if yours is really oil,(which it sounds like it is) or possibly black sticky goo from the rubber.

Now that I have seen, (but if its real greesy and oily, then its oil someone either tried to quiet the spindle down or lubricated the player improperly)

Vinyl collector is correct on this because you see black specs, I didn't read too carefully...

Thank you very much for the replies.
It looks like I should take it in and have it checked out. I'll double-check the LDs that I played but there didn't appear to be any sign of deposits on them but I only noticed the problem when I started to get a black deposit.
The degraded rubber sounds plausible and it might be the case (I'm guessing here) that the previous owner had put some clear lubrication onto the sticky part.
If needed, I can only hope that this guy can get hold of a replacement part.

PS There is a dried-on black deposit on the inner rim of all of the LDs that I have played. I have packaged the player up and will be taking it in for repair as soon as I can. [Knowing this repair engineer I'll probably never use the machine again!]

PPS I have now spotted the black dried-on deposit on discs I hadn't played so perhaps the rubber wears into the inner rim of the discs anyway? That being said, the player is packed up ready to go in now.
Funny. I was wondering how come I got the player so cheap... (around half the expected price for a "quick" sale, or so this guy said).

I don't think the rubber would wear into the LD rim, but just leave a deposit on it which can be cleaned off. The replacement rubber is easy to buy if that ends up being the problem , so they should have no problem fixing it. If they can't get the rubber part our member ldservice (Duncan) can get you the part.

Thank you very much. I'll bear this in mind.

PS I have now spoken to the engineer. I got the feeling he is beginning to find me tiresome (I have popped in and spoken to him quite a few times over the last few months) but having discussed the player his thoughts were as follows: "There is a possibility that the gear system on the laser transport may be leaking when it's playing side B."; "It should be an easy thing just to clean up yourself without bringing it to me." My interpretation is that he didn't want to see it.
Anyway, I made my way home and opened the machine up, in the knowledge at least that it should be an easy clean-up job. I managed to clean some black, almost dusty material from the disc clamps but the only lubrication I actually found was on the door mechanism - a rather plastic affair that seemed to be smeared in grease. I removed most of the grease (of course, it's quite an operation to completely remove stuff like that) though I think that enough remains to do the lubrication work that I think the previous owner had put it there for. It had been protruding upwards from the gears and it may be the case that a sample was collected up by the drawer as it withdrew into the belly of the machine. This grease must then have been transferred somehow to the central portion of the CD I was trying to play.
I have now played a couple of CDs with no sign of any deposit. I can cautiously say that the situation is now rectified and I can now look forward to finding the handset so that I can experience the additional audio tracks on "This is Spinal Tap". Of course, the picture will be a bit funny because I'm hooked up to my computer at the moment and it is locked in PAL mode. Ho hum.
In closing, thank you all for reading this thread. Let's hope there aren't too many bright sparks out there like the bloke who "fixed" this player.