Now that we’re into 2026, it appears the era of CD players in new cars may be truly over, though it has certainly been effectively over for much longer. According to AutoBlog, Lexus and Subaru were the CD player holdouts in 2025, and even if some models hold on into 2026 with CD slots in the dash, it’s safe to assume no manufacturers are adding CD players to their cars moving forward.
But that doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of cars still out there rocking CD players, of course, even if it’s been a good long while since any CDs were actually rocked therein. Or maybe you’re slipping discs in and out of your dash on the regular. Heck, maybe you’re still burning your own mix CDs, of which our pal Kristen Lee over at MotorTrend will surely approve. That’s why we’re Autopian Asking.
And while this is certainly an opportunity to brag about the highly tasteful tunes you’re blasting via a laser bouncing off pits in a piece of aluminized plastic, the question may provoke some of you to ask it of yourselves with more emphasis on the is: “What IS in my CD player?” Dark Side Of The Moon? Sebadoh’s Harmacy? A slice of ham? A Kraft Single?
Back in the day, you probably had a zippered case bulging with CDs freed from their fragile and space-eating jewel cases. If you think scrolling a Spotify screen is distracting while driving, try clumsily flipping through a fat tome of plastic pages balanced on your knee, then extracting the disc you want and swapping it with whatever you’re ejecting to be replaced. Much whirring and clicking later, music at last.
So we ask you: what’s in your CD player right now, if you have one? What used to be in there when you had one?
Top graphic image: DepositPhotos.com
We have two cars with CD players. Both currently hold CDs I burned in 2025 containing various MP3 albums of retro video game music. Sometimes my wife slips in a System of a Down album which plays very loudly when the car is turned on and which get’s immediately removed whenever I use the car. And vice versa 😉
I have never put a CD in my last two cars, just a thumb drive for music and BT for podcasts.
I used the CD slot in my previous car (now daughter’s car) for a phone mount. Current car has a phone mount bolted to the back side of the gauges.
A copy of Failure’s Fantastic Planet seemed to frequently hang out in the CD player when I had them in my cars. I’m down to just 1 car with a CD player and it’s a 6 disc one, so I’m scared to lose it in there. Apparently that disc has gotten insanely expensive.
Such a great album! And yeah, I’m glad I got their CDs when they were cheap. I honestly don’t know why they don’t re-release them. I know they’d sell pretty well despite vinyl being the “in” thing.
Currently, Lacuna Coil. I very much still use CDs. All of my cars still have CD capability. though my wife’s doesn’t.
I just bought a “vintage style” cd player that I added to my 1970s component stereo stack in my office. Took me forever to find one that looked and fit decently enough to actually buy. totally worth it.
Good answer! The CD player in my Baja is currently rocking a CD-R burned with two Lacuna Coil albums – In A Reverie and Unleased Memories.
Both great albums. I’m a much bigger fan of their earlier stuff, when Cristina did that large majority of the vocals, and Andrea didn’t do as much screaming.
None, because I installed a magic box that hijacks the CD function and turns it into a Bluetooth input. It even allows me to advance/restart tracks using the buttons on the factory head unit and the steering wheel. I never have to even take my phone out of my pocket.
Magic!
Back in the day I used to make a lot of mix-CDs. It was necessary evil as I could only listen to my favorite albums so many times. But ever since my 2013 came with a USB reader for media I dumped all the CDs and never looked back. I’m rocking 4k+ tunes on a 64GB drive, available at my whim and am not missing faffing around with a stack of damn disks. So while my car does have a CD player, no CD has ever been in there.
The newest car I own is from 1982; the newest car I’ve ever owned was from 1983. A previous owner installed an aftermarket MiniDisc player in the latter, for which I had precisely zero MiniDiscs, but I’ve never owned a car with a CD player.
I remember As The World Turns when Emma Snyder got a CD player as a gift and remarked, “But I don’t own any compact dishes”.
I was living in Hong Kong at the height of minidisc era and have stacks of mini-discs that I listened to in high school and college. I’d love to revisit them but my newest player, bought in Tokyo (2002?) stopped working decades ago. Its all 90’s grunge, old school punk and third wave ska that I copied from my friend’s collections. Great way to get music and not have to pay for the albums back then before Napster and limewire were a thing
My car does have a CD player, and I remember it working when I bought the car, but it hasn’t been working recently. I’m also too young to have bought any CDs while they were relevant, but I have bought a handful of albums I enjoy from garage sales, just so I’m not totally dependent on a Spotify subscription. I currently have the Newsboys compilation album Shine: The Hits sitting in the car, but as mentioned, the CD player doesn’t work…
We now have 1 CD player between 2 cars, and that one with a CD player was a MY2022 vehicle procured the same year, so we haven’t played a single disc on it since it also has CarPlay.
I had a MY2008 vehicle into 2023, and I think the last disc that came out of the changer on that car was a Wilco show from either 2001 or 2002. Even then, I’m not sure I used the CD player much since it had satellite radio.
The Root Down EP by the Beastie Boys, at least it was until the week before Christmas. My younger son (13) wanted a multi-disc CD Changer, and I found a very nice vintage Technics on eBay that I had to put through it’s paces before stuffing it under the tree. Its been sitting on my desk since then.
I should add, that only my newer Civic (13) has a CD Player, I replaced the 03’s head unit with a cheap Car Play unit sans CD Player. I haven’t done that to the 13 because I want to keep the iMID functional. I’m on the hunt for a CRV head unit that is a direct swap and includes Car Play. Unfortunately every time I troll eBay they are always listed as “For Parts/Untested” and I’m not willing to waste $250 on a questionable part.
My phone is stuffed with B-Boys. For good reason.
Same, and they represent a percentage of my vinyl collection as well. Eventually I’ll have all their releases on vinyl, but storage is an ever-present problem. Too many albums, too little space.
The last CD I put into a car stereo was the Cowboy Bebop soundtrack in my 1-series, that the car then refused to eject. Ended up having to take the stereo out, partially disassemble it, and then, while my dad held it I pressed the eject button to then grab the tiniest bit of CD edge to pull it out.
In the ’80’s, my sister and I drove from Cleveland to St. Louis with nothing but a single cassette of Jan and Dean’s Greatest Hits (i.e. Brian Wilson’s Trash Can). I learned my lesson, and each head unit still has an all-purpose CD at all times in case CarPlay freaks out: Bob Marley’s Legend in one car and Yo La Tengo’s Fakebook in the other.
PS–It wasn’t a complete loss: the question that won us a bar trivia quiz one night was “What flowers did the little old lady from Pasadena grow?”
My buddy and I once drove a car he bought back from Santa Barbara to Chicago, and the only tape we had was Dark Side Of The Moon.
White Gardenias, of course.
I’ve started getting my favorite albums on CD to get the highest quality rips (unfortunately not making my PC a Chernobyl of open-seas viruses).
In my glove box I have Plague Accommodations by Thank You Scientist, a 3-Disc set of the Initial D soundtrack, and I just got Tsunami Sea by Spiritbox for Christmas.
The last CD I can remember was in my friends car. He thought it was the funniest thing in the world to have a burned CD with I’m Gonna Be from The Proclaimers on it as many times as possible. He enjoyed seeing how long it would take someone to notice it was playing over and over again.
Inspired by How I Met Your Mother?
Just wait, it’ll come back around.
I loaned my car long ago to a girl I had a thing for, and she left a cassette behind with the Cure’s album Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me on one side and the single Just Like Heaven over and over and over on the other.
The Proclaimers pretty much just copied Slade, but a decade later.
11 short stories of pain and glory by the Dropkick Murphys and Empire of Sand by Mastodon. Both bands I dearly adore and have seen 10+ times. They are the only CDs in my car but I rarely play them. My commute is ~15 minutes and I just listen to the radio. Longer drives I generally plug in my phone.
RIP Brent Hinds
Last CD I played in a car was Linkin Park’s new From Zero album and that was just a year or two ago. Currently though, my normal daily does not have a CD player. The other two cars both do, but I very rarely use them. 99% of the time it’s just plugging my phone in and streaming whatever I’m feeling.
Fun fact, I was selling a car once (2005 Sebring Convertible, hate them all you want, it was good to me), and the buyer was on the fence, but commented about absolutely loving the CD that was playing in it when she test drove it. I offered to leave it in there for her, and she bought it! CD was Science and Faith by the Script.
So did she buy the car or did she buy the CD and get the car as a free gift with purchase?
Damn that was an expensive CD. The CD was probably better than the car though so…
Kiss Alive III
It has lived in the cd player for several years and I play it when I remember it, that is, when not listening the the rumbly V8 and Flowmaster exhaust.
Somehow the 6-disc changer in my Saab 9-3 started working, but I don’t know that I trust it with the few dozen retail discs I’ve got left from my CD collection. I’ll probably fill it with burned mix discs.
I paid to make sure the tape deck and CD player in my NA Miata’s MSSS1 were functional, but I must confess I have yet to stick a CD in there at all. A copy of Nirvana’s Unplugged is at the ready, though.
AKA The Meat Puppets Greatest Hits.
True story: When Nirvana’s Unplugged came out it completely rewrote my opinion of the band and I went from hating them to really enjoying and appreciating their music. I wanted to run right out and buy the album, but it actually didn’t come out for a very long time after the episode aired. I got impatient so I bought the Meat Puppets second album which had the two songs Nirvana played with them (plus a third that ended up going on the CD but didn’t air) and wow they were terrible. I mean, I guess it’s a matter of taste, but when “Backwater” finally came out, you could tell the studio engineers worked with them to make them a lot more radio friendly to capitalize on their new fame. I still have that cassette somewhere, but man, the vocals are an acquired taste.
Went to see Elvis Costello, The Meat Puppets were the opening act. Have zero memory of the performance.
I was a late holdout, with a couple older cars that had functioning CD players and no adapter for my old iPod or phone.
Joe Satriani was a favorite, and I was a fan of movie soundtracks because it was an easy way to have an assortment.
Sadly, no CD player in my car now. But I’ll tell the story of what stayed in slot 1 of the six-disc changer in my last car, Faith.
Faith, a 2007 Saturn ION 2 named after the protagonist of Mirror’s Edge, which would eventually get vinyl applied to match the eye and arm tattoos. When I first picked her up, I’d created a mix CD. It starts with the theme from that game, Still Alive (no, not that one), but then after that truly is just a random mix of songs. Your Song by Elton John, A cover of U2’s Pride by Soweto Gospel Choir, Superman by Lazlo Bane, Phantom of the Opera.
That disc stayed in slot 1 for the entire ten years I owned the vehicle, except when I took it out one time to make a copy for a friend of mine. When I lost my job, I started a new one and the line from Superman, “Gotta meet the new boss by 8AM” played, but even beyond that one moment it’s nostalgic. A reminder of driving the back roads of the Adirondacks to visit my then-girlfriend, listening to that mix. Something to swap to if I wasn’t feeling like swapping anything else to the other slots.
When I had to get rid of that car, I left that disc in slot 1. It belonged with it (even as, realistically, the car was probably scrapped immediately and the disc was trashed, BUT).
Three years later, I heard one of the songs that’d been on the mix, and I really wanted to listen to it again. The way that A Glorious Dawn by Symphony of Science (or Carl Sagan, if you prefer) segues into Send Me On My Way by Rusted Root, then into Walk Like a Man by The Four Seasons. But… I didn’t have the CD anymore. And I’d never written down the list of songs on it.
Re-enter my friend Mina, who eventually found the CD, tried her best to Shazam the songs on it (there are some weird ones, obviously E – Extended Mix by Drunkenmunky comes up as something Eminem). And together, we put it back together.
Nowadays, I don’t have a CD player. But I do have Android Auto. And when Archangel’s screen shows the album art of the Mirror’s Edge soundtrack, I’m brought right back to the good times I had with Faith.
Don’t judge me… But I’ve got a fever for more Cowbell in my Buick Rainier – a 6 random / rotation of Blue Oyster Cult CD’s.
The Chevy SS is garaged for the winter, but if memory serves:
– Genesis: The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway
– King’s X: Faith, Hope, Love
– Faith No More: Angel Dust
– Fleetwood Mac: Then Play On
Currently in the Bronco II (winter wheels) the original tape deck is still wheezing along and has mostly been Bad Brains, and Morphine (that I recorded to tape from vinyl in order to maintain proper analogness).
+1 for Peter Gabriel-era Genesis, although my personal choice is Foxtrot. Supper’s Ready is the GOAT prog rock song.
Supper’s Ready is the pinnacle of human artistic achievement
Especially the live version from Seconds Out. Right now in the 6 disc changer in a RAV4 I have another pretty good Genesis 2 disc recording, Live Over Europe, from 2007. Before that I was listening to Cult of Static by Static-X.
2017 Mazda6 – Maybe The Human League’s “Dare” album, but I typically just listen to MP3’s from a USB drive.
2012 Mazda MX-5 – I have 2 CD’s worth of MP3’s loaded into the stock 6 disc changer.
*EDIT* Just to point out that the MP3’s on the USB and burned CD’s were ripped from my CD collection and all the source CD’s are still in my possession. I should pop Duran Duran’s Rio into a CD player and see if it will play or if it has rotted as that is my oldest CD.
True Loves “Sunday Afternoon” is currently in the commute rotation. “Best of Bread” is waiting patiently in the tape deck of the weekend warrior rig.