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
Against me! is reinventing axl rose
Been stuck in there since before I moved the deck from my last truck. Still skips on track 9.
That is an epic album, track 9 should be Baby, I’m an Anarchist. That’s my band’s go-to jam when the acoustic guitars are out. Too bad it skips
Yeah it’s tough to start belting that chorus out and then have it skip.
I realize that I enjoyed the sense of theater that an auto reversing tape deck created with the pause and then the sound of like a rifle bolt and then even if you ve heard the album a hundred times the “I wonder what’s on side two” moment. CDs were great at the time but I don t miss the format in cars. MP3s don’t skip.
A few of the CDs in my car skip too, but not on such epic songs! And they are just backup for my old IPhone on MP3 duty ever loses its charge.
Albannach Bare knuckle Pipes and Drums.
2017 Lexus RX350 here.
It’s a single player now, what else but the Cars’ greatest hits? Swapped with Best of Bowie and Fleetwood Mac Rumours.
Mystery Skulls Ultra Rare Volume 3. They gave it away at a concert I went to last year, and since my wife and I both got one, one went straight into the old 6 disc changer where it still lives.
The Eagles -Hotel California that is currently stuck as the cd player no longer will eject. I guess the old F250 is an Eagles fan.
I once had my tape deck positively hurl a tape out at me (it made it to the center armrest before I could catch it), so while your Ford loves the Eagles, I guess my BMW really hates 10,000 Maniacs.
So you can check out the CD any time you like, but it can never leave?
Before we traded our Q5 in (long story), it had Sammy Davis Jr. – The Wham of Sam. Now we stream from our phones via CarPlay.
Right now it’s a CD that is not available online Peter Wolf’s Midnight Souvenirs. It’s got Neko Case, Shelby Lynn, and Merle Haggard on it with him. Great album. It’s in the 2016 Audi TDI
Currently its the Phantom of the Opera original cast soundtrack, but it was Boston Walk on before that.
In middle school that was one of the only things my whole family could agree on when in the car, I had all of the songs memorized then too. My dad’s Christmas present for the whole family was a trip to Toronto in around 1994 or so to see that the performance and it was amazing in person.
The Florence & The Machine Symphony of Lungs concert, where she performed with Jules Buckley and his Orchestra at the Royal Albert Hall in London for the 15th anniversary of Lungs. It’s fantastic, both for the music and the recording quality.
Usually something in the vast expanse of the Stereolab back catalogue. I have taste.
A phone mount.
Car’s old enough that CD players were just an option, and the first owner of mine decided ‘no’ on that, so all I got is a tape player.
I did, however, pick up a Sony 5-cd changer for my home hi-fi the other day (for the low, low price of $1.33 at a charity shop) and it’s just had Robyn’s albums playing through it non-stop, so I guess that’s my best answer.
Well I paid 9 bucks for the same thing at Goodwill.
Good score.
Money well spent.
I have a killer home stereo from charity shops, Craigslist, and judicious trades. I think it cost me $250 Max for a high-end receiver, CD deck, NHT sub with dedicated amp, and a pair of speakers.
The move to shitty and/or wireless audio has caused a flood of really awesome “old” gear on the market.
I have a buddy who’s really into all the new audio stuff who loves to ask me things like:
“why wouldn’t you just get rid of all that wired crap and do bluetooth?”
Idk, dude, why would I sacrifice something that just works for something that requires charging and cuts out every time someone walks between the transmitter and receiver?
Yeah, wires *always* work at the highest fidelity and require no batteries. If your stuff is stationaryz, why go wireless?
In my Oldsmobile I have «Judas Priest,Invincible Shield». The car is sidelined now though,so I haven’t listened to it for a while. We have two more cars with cd players as well,but I don’t know what’s in them.
My 2010 GMC truck has a Kenwood deck in it. It’s i-Pod compatible and I have a 160gb iPod Classic connected to it. There are over 25K songs on that iPod, along with a few playlists of favorites. A few of them have 500-ish songs on them, but my most-used playlist has over 2200 songs.
As far as what’s in the actual CD slot? An MP3 disc containing a playlist of 150 songs or so.
Same with my El Camino (Blaupunkt head unit) and the wife’s 2015 Cruze. (factory head unit) MP3 discs with a bunch of cool songs on them.
As far as actual store (or Amazon) bought CDs, I still buy them, (bought a dozen or so in 2025) then rip them into iTunes to update the iPods, but we also play them in the home stereo CD player.
We’re old-school.
I don’t have a CD player in my CX-5 (I think I missed the cutoff by a couple months), but I do have a memory stick in the centre console with nearly every CD my wife and I own on it. I think the last album played was Action Pact by Sloan.
I have disc of the “Top 100 Singles of 1983” that the previous owner left in the car when I bought it in 2012.
I used to have a burned CD with all kinds of things I downloaded from t’ net in my CD Player. Video game stuff, Eurobeat, dumb college age nerd stuff. Now my FR-S is all Bluetooth or AM/HD Radio FM, and for some time now has been NPR shows and podcasts.
I don’t remember what my Bug’s aftermarket radio has. If it has a CD I might charge the battery and see if there’s anything in there.
Still have a CD player in auto. Factory installed.
Dark Side Of The Moon seems to reside there almost constantly.
Except when a good dose of Robert Earl Keen is needed.
Or when the Beatles or Stones start fighting for a spot in the rotation.
Poco, and Pure Prairie League, CSN, and Neil Young, Bob Dylan.
I also have been known to lug around a couple hundred CD’s along on a long road trip.
But usually 15-20 reside one the seat on any given day.
It’s rare that I switch off the Sirius radio though. Very rare. YMMV as always.
Dokken. Back For The Attack.
Yeah, I’m old.
Still a good album. Damn nostalgia.
Band: BL’AST! Album/CD title: ‘Take The Manic Ride’ (1989, SST Records #225). Sounds like: if late-stage BLACK FLAG played faster & leaned more metal-ish. One of the most apt, descriptive album titles ever.
I need to look this up! Black Flag’s My War is one of the 6 albums in my DD.
My only car with a CD player is the NB Miata.
The car is hibernating, but I think the CD player is holding Jagged Little Pill by Alanis Morissette.
I was an extremely early adopter of digital music devices, and managed to win an iPod way back in like 2001 when they were just releasing.
so at no point in my driving life did I primarily use CDs to listen to music in my vehicles. every CD I had was immediately ripped to the iPod and that got connected to my radio through the cassette adapters for my first truck lol.
when I got my first car (still own it) with a CD player, it also came with iPod connectivity, so I still didn’t need CDs.
If I had to guess what CD might have been in there the most and last, it would probably be The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill
mind.in.a.box – Lost Alone lives in my CD player for times where my phone is dead or whatever. Never had that actually occur but it’s good to be prepared
Absolutely fantastic album to keep at the ready.
wow hey I thought there was no chance anyone would know what I was talking about????????one of my all-time favorites
oh it turned my emojis into ??????s
In my beater Transit Connect “Stay Awake”, Disney film tunes by various interesting artists like The Sun Ra Arkestra , David Johansen and Tom Waits.
Melancholy and the infinite sadness – disc one right now.
I always preferred Disc 1 as a whole but some of my favorite songs are on Disc 2.