I have seen people set up their CD players in different locations. Even the glove box. lol Or between the driver & passenger seats. Depends on type of car-seating I guess. Glove box would make it difficult to reach from driver's seat & would mean restricted space for other items. Other possible location, under the dashboard on driver's side to the side of steering wheel. BTW could be worth the experiment to simply connect the CD player whilst car engine is not running. See if same problems with CD-R's you haven't tried yet. (Though first back up the CD's on your computer just in case.)