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
In my Fusion that hasn’t been on the road since about April/May I have Chvrches-Love is Dead.
In my Element I have a backup CD of ICP’s Yum Yum Bedlam, in case I take my usb drive out and forget to put it back.
I don’t care what you think I love a lot of music.
Although currently not in the CD player of my 91 Honda Civic Wagon AWD, but purchased just last night on Discogs specifically to play in my car, is the Dogs in Space movie soundtrack. I mean with a description like this, how could I not pay too much for the CD soundtrack for my most favorite movie: “From the collection of Kelley Deal of The Breeders – Disc appears unplayed with light signs of handling.”
I can’t wait!
We just got back from Christmas vacation in my JSW TDI, which has a CD player, and while a lot of time was spent with Spotify and a couple of podcasts (‘Blowback’ on Angola and ‘Fela Kuti; Fear No Man’) , CDs played were:
Yonder Mountain String Band @ the Station Inn, Nashville, 14 October 2001 (both sets)
YMSB @ the Freight & Salvage, Berkeley, 22 May 2002
John Hartford, ‘Gum Tree Canoe’
John Hartford @ the Bottom Line, NYC, August 1975
(I’ve had all of these CDs since about 2002-3)
Both Yonder and Hartford do covers of the Rolling Stones’ “No Expectations”
Also, John Hartford is a goddamn treasure.
Def Leppard – Pyromania. Almost permanently installed in my 2012 Mustang. Used to play the tape while cruising the loop in Puyallup, WA in my 67 GTX in the mid-80’s.
Megadeth- Rust in Peace
Hell yeah
This is a discussion that I enjoyed reading all the responses to, they are as varied as the members here! Both of my cars have CD players. In my DD 5th gen Camaro it has a 6 disc player which I rely on as backup if my old iPhone 7 ever loses its charge. That iPhone I leave plugged into the car’s USB port and play music from that. The sound quality is better than bluetooth and I can just leave it and forget it.
In my 6 disc changer, I keep a good mix of CD that haven’t been changed out in around 10 years now. On my morning commute I refreshed my memory by playing each one.
My 2003 BMW E85 has a single CD player. I parked the car in my garage in the Michigan over a year and a half ago and haven’t been back since due to work and family, so I honestly can’t remember what CD I left in. The sound system is not very good and with the top down, you can’t hear anything anyway so I rarely play music when driving that car. Next time I go back to the states, I doubt I’ll even get to drive it much as we have a baby now and we’ll be needing a car with more than 2 seats. If I were to make a guess it’s probably a burned copy of Mike Ness’s solo work or a punk compilation that I burned 15 years ago when it didn’t have an AUX cable yet.
In my 2000 Ford Ranger electric’s aftermarket Sony CD player with Apple Carplay(wired but I have a wireless adapter) I usually have Living in Oblivion Volume 4, New wave hits, I have the whole 5 disc compilation on my iphone but just popping in the CD reminds me of simpler times.
Funnily enough my stereo has just 1 usb port and can either do Carplay OR a USB drive with MP3s, so I leave the carplay adapter on it, BUT although it can play MP3s on the USB, it can not read an MP3 CD, only plays audio CDs or video DVDs, which I’m like huh? It’s from the mid 2000s, I was playing MP3 CDs in the 90s! But again I kind of like how it limits me to playing regular CDs, I have the option to play thousands of songs from the iphone but the simplicity of the CD takes me back.
Soundtracks. The Miata has an in-dash 6-disc changer and it has a bunch of soundtracks in it. IIRC, The Crow, Hackers, Empire records, Clueless, The Craft and Singles.
Just the other day I was driving my sister’s 2015 Buick and noticed the CD player for the first time. She had the Monkees greatest hits. I enjoyed every song.
I didn’t even realize my 2028 F-150 had a CD player initially when I got it. Have a couple Santana CD’s in the truck when we’re out of radio range. My 09 Mustang holds 6 CD’s, there’s Rush, Jethro Tull, Allman Bros and BTO that have been in there for the last 10 years although I don’t use it often either.
Went out to the garage to check. Currently, Garth Brooks “Fun” in the Ranger (and the tape player has Alan Jackson “A Lot About Livin”), Green Day “American Idiot” in the Fusion, Guster “Keep it Together” in the Flex.
FCA threw us old people a bone with the 2019 Ram. So It’s Jimmy Buffett’s final CD Equal Strain on All Parts , GNR Appetite For Destruction and Beach Boys Endless Summer .
My Land Cruiser’s stereo has had the same sampler of Nino Rota scores for Fellini movies in it for about five years now. It helps inject a comic element into urban driving. I can quietly think “Cosa fai? Mossa! Subito!” instead of cursing at the windshield, and sometimes the theme from “8-1/2” comes on during a break in traffic and I feel like Mastroianni flying out of the gridlocked tunnel in that opening scene.
For the 2 out of 4 cars with CD players, I don’t know, they’re stuck. I am replacing one of them, and I’m hoping to find out!
Since we have older cars and never got into music on phones CD and radio are our default car audio. At the moment I have some retro stuff in the truck, The Hoodoo Gurus and Ned’s Atomic Dustbin plus an old Hardbass rip for getting in touch with my inner gopnik and confounding the stereotype of pickup trucks and country music. My wife’s car has her Daft Punk collection and The Decembrists.
My kids can be more retro because they have vehicles with cassette decks. FWIW they are both weebs so one likes older J Pop and one plays Sonic the Hedgehog music
Kitchen CD player while cooking dinner I was listening to The Rolling Stones “Some Girls”.I wish my Mazda had a CD player.
Basia Live at Carnegie Hall. It’s stuck. Won’t play. Won’t come out.
Nothing. I built my own audio system that’s just an amp, a toggle switch, a volume knob, and a line in.
https://www.overlandbound.com/forums/attachments/img_20250509_193611106_hdr-jpg.294408/
GUDJ002- Plump DJs for when I forget to turn on bluetooth on my phone.
I have a single CD player behind the COMAND screen, and a 6 disc changer in the glovebox.
During my entire 13 years if ownership, I have never used either of them once.
Well, Like most, I don’t have a CD player in my car, but I was listening to a CD on the portable boombox this mornig while I exercised: Iron Maiden, The Number of the Beast. As some of the original masters of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, I loved them in my youth, and they’re still great so many years on.
The Premium spec sound system in my 2003 Ford BA Fairlane Ghia has an in-dash 6 CD stacker, so I have a selection that every few months gets the least played disc swapped for something new.
Currently:
Faith No More – The Real Thing
My Chemical Romance – The Black Parade
Aesop Rock – The Impossible Kid
Chappell Roan – The Rise and Fall of a Midwestern Princess
Venus Hum – Best Remodeled
New Order – Substance 1987 (Disc 1)
It barely gets used, but I had to check to see the last thing I had in there. It’s currently Alt-J – An Awesome Wave.
M Coupe is put away for the winter, but I am 99% sure there’s a Big Sandy and the Fly Rite Boys CD in it and waiting for spring.
I guess if there’s any automotive space online where I shouldn’t be surprised to see a Big Sandy reference, it’s here!
They were a regular feature of KCMU/KEXP’s long-running Friday night rockabilly show, Shake the Shack. (I still miss Dr. Leon Berman, the Proctologist of Rock ‘n’ Roll!)
Morphine is a regular on my playlist.
I was just driving around and heard Morphine used as a bump between news stories and thought “Man, I should get back into that.”