I would also recommend you set aside a bit of time to do this, as the differance between taking your time and rushing it is weather or not it will work afterwards..
So here we go....
TOOLS NEEDED FOR THIS JOB...
1/ Cd player .. obviously
2/ Good set of jewelers srewdrivers.
3/ Polish and rag ,, I use meguiars professioal ( yeah right) swirl remover 2.0.. Now i would not use this stuff on my car as i have seen it ADD scratches to paint, but for this it seems to work really well..
4/ A bit of patience...
As you can see it is not a big list , and most people would have these items already ..
I just bought this cd player off our own for sale forum. I think i paid $30 for it, which makes it a very cheap cd player.. Exspecially a vdo one at that...The face did not look too bad from front on, but from side on ( as you can see in the pics) it was a very differant story.. I do not know too many cars that allow you to sit straight on to your cd player, so it needed to be polished before i would be happy using it..
First thing you need to do is to lay the face plate , face down on your rag..( we are taking out scratches , so there is no point adding any more in) Locate the little grub screws in the backing plate. In this case there was only four, but they were all security screws( off shape hex ) A small blade screwdriver normally fits these as they are not super tight to start with.. Remove all the screws.. MAKE SURE YOU GET THEM ALL , OTHERWISE YOU WILL BREAK YOUR FACE PLATE!!
Next you need to work out how your face plate comes apart. Mine was held with little moulded in clips, and i just had to run my finger nail along the join to seperate the two halves. Take your time here , as rushing will only break your face plate..
Now that you have the face plate rear cover off. Put it aside somewhere safe. Looking into the back you will see all your circuit board that operates your cd player.. Being very careful , look around for any more little grub screws.. If you have any , remove them , as they will be holding your board in place. In my case the board was just sitting in place, and the screws through the backing plate hold it in place.. Remove the circuit board and place in your safe place along with the backing plate.
Next you will need to work out how your buttons are held in place. Before you start to remove, if you can , take a pic of the front as this will allow you to remember where all the buttons go . On the vdo unit, it had a strange set up where some of the buttons came in from the front, and clipped into p[lace with a spreader clip. I had to gently sqeeze the clip together and the button fell out ..Remove all the buttons on your player, as we are going to clean all them and around them as well...
When you have done all this , you should have something that looks nothing like a cd player, but dose look like this...( right about now you can say , oh shit , what have i done!!)
We will start with the buttons. Clean around the edges of the buttons( were they sit throught the face plate) This will not only make them look a lot better, but nay also aid the operation of some buttons really covered with crap. Again this one was not bad in the button dep, just face scratches. But you can still see a bit of crap around the sides of the button in the first pic, and you can see a noticable diff in the chrome buttons in the second pic...
Next comes the face plate itself. First you need to check if the writing( brand name , or button description) is written on the plastic or under it. Easiest way is to look at it on an angle, if they are on top you will see it sitting on top, if they are under it will appear like it is sitting in water. If your writing is on top, you will need to stay away from ANY writing with the polish, as it will remove the writing for you as well.. If it is under polish away!!! You only need to use the polish sparingly , as it is not a big item we are doing here.. I always polish mine three or four times for the best results..Buff the polish off as you would normally do with your car , with a soft polishing cloth. Takew care not to touch the inside of the screen too much , as it will just make it harder for you later..
After you have done all this you can start to put all your buttons back into place.. Again , take your time!!!! Once you have all your buttons back into place, give the inside of the screen a gentle wipe with a soft cloth.. This is just to remove any fingerprints on the inside ..Put all your circuit board back into place, screw it down if it had screws.. And put your backing plate back on.. Before you screw your backing on , give all your buttons a gentle push to make sure they are all working as they should.. Now screw the backing on , turn the face around and admire your handy work!!!
BEFORE
AFTER
As you can see from the pics, it really does make a huge differance, and may very well negate the need for a new player.... Good luck all , and if anyone has any questions, please don't hesitate to ask..... ps i will be redoing my tech article on installing a cd player with this one later in the week...
that looks awesome! job well done 
good experiment..
