Asking for help - Please! How to play CD's in car with no CD player!

Sony Discman or Walkman portable CD player. Problem solved! 🤗

What about if your wife does not like your music choice?

Most of the cars audio systems, unless high end like the Levinson, ect. only play MP3 files.  So, you should read the car manual first to see what types of files can be put on a memory stick.  My 2017 Hyundai only accepts MP-3.  In my case, I listen to fm or xd radio.  My iPhone is only 16gb and won't hold much music.

You have the CDs you want to copy music from and a laptop to copy them to. What you need to capture, catalog and transfer the music to a player of some kind is a music management application running on the laptop. There are a number of those but the most commonly used one is iTunes, there are versions for both Windows and Mac OS.

From there you would plug your player (Android or iPhone, tablet, dedicated mp3 player, etc.) into the laptop, transfer the music to it and plug it into the player in your car if it has a wired input or use Bluetooth to connect.

One big advantage for me of that kind of setup is that you're not limited to the content of individual CDs. Building playlists gives you tremendous flexibility. I have a 'roadtrip' playlist I've been building for years. It has over 1,200 songs, all chosen because they're good driving music. I can plug in my iPhone, put it on shuffle and play for a week without hearing the same song twice. If you're planning on driving fast, do a Tom Petty playlist, if it's a relaxed Sunday afternoon drive maybe the Bach French Suites.

I agree that you shouldn't use the physical CDs in your car. More important than the possibility of damage to the CDs is that handling CDs while you're driving is just not safe. I've done it but won't do it again.

The fidelity of MP3 files certainly isn't as high as CD files but in a car, that doesn't matter. With road noise and wind noise the difference won't matter.

If you don't want to use your phone for music playback while driving you could get an inexpensive tablet to hold the music and use its Bluetooth output to connect. You can get a refurbished iPad Mini from a4c.com for $130 and because of the larger screen have a much easier time navigating through your music while you're driving