>Unfortunately, my car came with a CD player (not an MP3/CD, but regular CD), and no tape cassette, so I don't have the ability to use a direct connection. So if this doesn't work out, I'll just bite the bullet and shell out a few hundred for a new system at Best Buy.

My car came with a decent radio (no player at all) with decent scanning, good reception... everything fine you expect from a car radio, except that it, well, catches radio. Which is dangerous to my driving (blogged, won't repeat).

So I bought the worst possible junk of a car radio, at Walmart no less, for just $25, and plugged it in. Apart from the price, it has two great features:

1) low steal appeal

2) AUX jack where I can plug my player.

It doesn't even sound too bad. The car's noise covers almost all of its defects.