I am bummed! I went out car shopping yesterday and found that Honda is not including CD players in a lot of their new cars anymore, including the one I was interested in. Not only that, but it's not even an option to add one!

I did a little research and found that car manufacturers are finding younger buyers don't use them and they add $30 (yes, a whopping $30!) to the cost of the car so that's why they're not including them. What about all the older buyers??? I'm officially a grumpy old man on this one.

This grumpy old man has probably used the CD player in his car less than 20 times over the last 6 years, since the purchase of the Forester.

My music collection is in the cloud, and with bluetooth, the only time I have a need for a CD player is if I haven't had a chance to rip a new CD and upload it.

I have a 6-CD changer in my current car that I use literally EVERY DAY. If I'm going on a 30-minute errand I'll grab 2-3 CD's on my way out the door. I have 2,000+ CD's and NONE in the cloud. I've never had an iTunes account nor owned an iPod. I'm not seeing a convenient way to make the switch.

Also, what about sound quality? Data usage on your phone plan? Finding the music you want to hear? I'm going to have to try to adapt but I have a million questions and see a hard road ahead for me.

This grumpy old pseudo-man will miss CD players in cars (hell, I still miss cassette players at times - and my buddy has a factory 8-track player in his Corvette), but in all honesty, I use the CD player in my vehicles less than 5% of the time. Most of my collection is on an iPod and an iPod Touch (and I may have to replace the iPod this year). It's great to have so much at my fingertips on a road trip, but sometimes I miss the days when I packed a case with 15 cassettes and that was my listening for the trip. For those trips, I could memorize what tapes I had and change them w/o looking. No more.

I heard that - as a potential customer that would be a buying decision - if say Chevy doesn't offer CD players then I go to the next auto maker.

Each day on the way to work it's play a cd - on the way home it's WFAN - Mike Francessa. He is supposed to retire at this time next year...if I were to buy a new car without a cd player - I'd be lost both to and from work.

I'm an old fart. I've driven Toyotas for over 30 years and planning to buy a new one next year. If I can't get a CD player, I'll look at other brands.

I know Jeeps have eliminated them but you can still add one for an extra fee (not cheap either). I would imagine very few brands will have CD players going forward. Years ago we would put after market CD players in the cars anyway so imagine people will go that route.
But I have to say having tunes on a USB stick is excellent. So convenient, no worry about storing CDs in a car environment. Tons of albums at the touch of a button.

2015 Chevy Trax - cd player was not an option - when I told the dealer that was a deal breaker - he couldn't believe it.

iTunes is horrible. Google Play Music is what I use, and it is available for IOS if you have an iPhone. I have Windows Media Player on my desktop computer set to Auto-rip whenever a CD is inserted, and Google Music Manager will upload the contents of a folder, and will only do what's new. Yes, you have to insert discs, let them rip, and then swap in another one, but it's a decent background task if you're working on something else. Grab a stack of CDs, run them through, then upload that batch.

I have 21,000 songs in my account, and can use voice search to find stuff while I'm driving.

If you don't want to use the phone and a data plan, you can put the ripped files on a USB stick, and play them that way.

LOL.

Years ago the sound system in my car mattered more than what the car was or is. I would install a premium system either by myself (my first car) or have a pro do it (the Camry I drove for years to work) that had all the bells and whistles (amps, top speakers, a subwoofer).

But the current car I still drive a 2007 Acura TL has a fantastic sound system that includes DVDA so that one needed no upgrading.

But most cars today have pretty decent sound systems and now include a USB port that you can stick a ScanDisc into and have quite a lot of tunes available with damn good sound.

I was just listening to GHOST via the USB port in our Jeep and it was glorious! The song 'I Believe'

I use Google Play, set to maximum quality. I don't have data limits, so I don't worry about that often, but when I travel (I tend to end up in places with no cell signals), I "pin" loads of music to my phone and stream it to the car stereo over bluetooth. With a subscription ($10/mo), you don't even have to rip any music from your CDs unless they don't have something. Ripping at 320K or streaming from them at same, for listening in the car, sounds fine. While I won't argue it's a substitute for your home CD/DVDA collection and audiophile speakers, it's quite acceptable for driving, IMO.

If you don't want the subscription, Google lets you upload your own music up to 20,000 songs. You can download as much as your phone storage will allow you to maintain, for offline use.

I remember those days well. First thing I did with a new car was replace the audio system, in the past. Factory was never any good. They've come a long way though. I was shocked when my new car last year didn't come with a CD player, admittedly...but then realized I hadn't listened to a CD in my car for years anyway, thanks to HQ streaming!

Ever since I had the ability to plug a flash drive into my car radio, I haven't used a single CD in the car. It's such a luxury to be able to have so much of my CD collection at my disposal with only a few very small flash drives.

And it's so portable. Blows away the audio quality of cassettes of years ago and because my drives are ripped from CDs, they audio quality is very comparable.
I've run out of space on my flash drive.

Another reason I'm in no rush to get a new car

My Subaru Outback is just fine and it has a CD player that I use every day.

I do not download a damn thing.

I will not use an iPod, or the cloud, or bluetooth or any other device.

All I play music with is CDs.

I stopped listening to the radio in 2000 and won't go back.

If I get a new care that doesn't have a CD player, then I'll deal with it.

Are there cars that do still have CD players as new automobiles?

It doesn't bother me. I listen to whatever is on the radio or I play music on Soundcloud from my phone.

I think on many models, you have to pony up for the premium sound system to get the AM/FM/XM/CD radio system. The CD player isn't just standard anymore.

Settle on the price of a car after negotiation, then say, with hand extended, "We have a deal, IF the car gets a CD player installed. Otherwise, I have to comparison shop elsewhere." Watch the magic happen.

They bumped the free service up to 50,000 songs about 2 years ago. That's probably 3000-4000 CDs.

You're misunderstanding. These were not base model vehicles I was looking at, and not only do they not come with CD players as standard equipment they are not an option, period. Not in a higher trim, not as part of an upgrade package, not as an a la carte add-on.