It could be an ancient CD player which only plays factory CDs,
not CD-Rs
?

The way to make an audio cd from mp3s or wavs is to use k3b or similar
programme, but make sure that you choose an audio CD project and not just
create a data disk with the files on it.

it's a 2005 Town and Country, not that ancient

When I rip cd's for my car, 2003 Accord Coupe, I have to finalize the cd
before the music will play. And not all vehicles will play burned media
either. Our Camery wont.

If you rip from Windows - look for the option that says to finalize the
cd. The cdrw I havent had great luck with but the cdr's I have.

This may depend on how you burned the cd. So what did you uise to burn it?
Some programs have option to burn as audio disk or data files. Depending on how
finicky the car cd player is, it may not play the later. I don't have any
insight into why this is, just something I have noticed in the past. The cd
player in my car has always been real fickle with that sort of stuff.

I used Brasero disk burner and created an Audio project.

How did you make the CD? For example, Brasero has an option labelled, "Create a
traditional audio CD." I have used this successfully.

If you make a data CD which contains the .WAV files, your car CD player probably
can not play them. (My Honda's CD player can handle a CD full of MP3s, so I can
have 11 hours of music on a single disc.)