This may or may not be of much help to you, but I've found the same things that you have. Car stereos are the worst as far as that goes. They seem pretty resistant to vibration, but they also seem to be the least likely to play the format you need. It's like Murphy's law - Whatever format you have the most of, that's what the deck doesn't play. Look in the fine print to see what formats it does, some don't even play CDR's.

But as for MP3, lots of low-cost players track them pretty well. Go figure. Run down to the KMart and grab a low-cost RCA player. You might find the DVD/CD/MPG unit for fifty bucks and it tracks 'em pretty well. "Real" CD's sound terrible, but MP3's work well and DVD's are surprisigly good.

And then the last thing I've found is that recordable CD's are sometimes more problem than the recording format. Some CDR's work for me for several plays, but don't last long. Some only last a few plays. I've never found a CDR that lasted as long as a permanently recorded CD. I'm guessing that their lifespan probably has to do with heat and maybe magnetism but whatever the case, they don't last long.

I don't know if that was any help to you or not, but I hope so. Go grab you one of those cheap players and see if that doesn't do the trick for you.

Wayne