... can anyone school me on how to get my personal CD's onto the iPad?
Looks like most new cars don't have a CD player, and all I have is a new iPad, no smart phone.
Anyway, I want to be able to listen to my personal music collection, so can I do it with an iPad?

Yes, it will work. IOS will function the same.

Forget the CDs,  get Apple Music, and get everything on Itunes for a small fee.

Simple Open I Tunes
-Insert a CD into a media player
-I Tunes will give you an option to download the CD to I tune Library
-Check the songs you want to be transferred
-Start Transfer

Yes.  I'm pretty sure what you'd have to do is copy the CDs (rip) them to your computer.  Import the music into itunes, sync your music library with your iPad then pair the iPad with your car stereo.

An alternative method would be rip the cd's to your computer, then copy the music to a thumb drive and plug the thumb drive into your car providing it has a media USB port.

Already have a bunch of stuff on my PC, but it is in some kind of weird format other than MP3, (wav4 or something) that my old car CD player played fine.
Will iTunes work with my what I already have, or will it need to be redone?

Just get an iPod or other media storage..? Put whatever songs you want on it. Plug into car stereo. Put iPod in glove box.
Update iPod ...? Repeat.

Many new cars also have a USB port for the radio, easier IMHO. No need for Iphone, Ipad, or Ipod etc.

Just do this. Apple Music (or Spotify or any other subscription service) runs off the cloud. It will not use any storage space. You can download songs and playlist onto your device for when you won't have connectivity.

Why waste several hours hours ripping your CD collection and then transferring over to another device???

If your vehicle has a USB port you might be able just to put it in a USB stick.

Yep, that's what I do. They make 128 GB USB sticks and those will hold a LOT of music. The display on my radio, which doubles as the backup camera display, will show many of the album covers if you have them in the folders. Not all of them for some reason, though.

I have one stick with something like 55 complete discs on it. Great for longer drives.

I still have an iPod I bought in 2006, but it just has to be ready to die. Still works and it's almost 13 years old. I figure the hard drive in it is on borrowed time, so I went with the sticks.

You should be able to use an iPad with your car’s stereo, but it will need to be either a Bluetooth connection or digital audio in via USB.  iPads do not support Apple CarPlay, so if you have CarPlay as an option, you will not have the same integration as an iPhone would.

But as others said, you should be able to put all your stuff on a USB stick and use your car’s head unit to navigate and play music from there, unless you specifically wanted the iPad so that you can use it’s interface to control your music.

Getting your music from CDs to the iPad is simple if you have a computer with a CD drive.  Just install and open iTunes on the computer, pop your CD in the drive, and iTunes has tools to rip your music from the CD to the computer.  From there, plug the iPad into the computer and sync.

Couple of things... Without knowing your exact make and model H.U. its hard to say...

1. Does your head unit (or one you want) have Native control for IPOD/IPad, look online, should tell you if so what version.  
If so, it will have a USB cable that will connect to one of these devices and really just just it as a storage for all your music.

If it does not, does it have an Aux input on Front or rear?  On front it will be a 1/8" headphone connector as an input and you'll hook a 1/8" Headphone connector to 1/8" Headphone from the headunit to the Ipod/Pad's headphone port.

Or the headunit may have a AUx input on the rear via a set of RCA inputs.  So you'll need a Male RCA (Left and Right) to 1/8" Headphone.

If you go that way. You'll have to control the tracks and play on the Ipod/pad and the volume on the head unit. Not as nice as native control...

Get one of these, put your MP3s on it, and plug it into the vehicle's USB port.