After driving $1500 cars for most of my life I’ve finally saved enough for a $3000 car

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EconomistDeep4347@reddit

Hate to break it to you, today's 3000 car was last year's 1500

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economysuperstar@reddit

It’s not just that cars are worth more, it’s that money is worth less.

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Aegean8485@reddit

Never paid more than $900 for a car monthly.

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BadPuns8@reddit

Guy at work just bought an A4 for 800 bucks. Has all the service records and came with spare lights and modules. I’m like dawg how

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bscrew@reddit

gonna be a repair bill 5x that soon!!!

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BadPuns8@reddit

Shii maybe but he’s been lucky with it so far he’s prob gonna get a great turnaround for it

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bscrew@reddit

I got a bud who was given a free VW wagon by his boss. $8k later in maintenance and electrical gremlins later he sold it off to the next sucker!

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Even here in Germany, my first car was a 1992 Audi 80 with the 1.9TDI that I got for 700€ absolutely great car body and interior In almost pristine condition unfortunately a year later part of the rear suspension rusted through so it wouldn’t pass inspection, the repair would’ve cost me 1200€ (back then I didn’t work on my car) little did I know that only 5 years later such a car in much worse condition would go for 3500€.

I think I‘ll just keep my current 20 year old Audi TT maintained as good as possible as I can’t Imagine the price for that going anywhere but up.

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joshman1204@reddit

Unfortunately in this market there is virtually zero difference in a 1500 or 3000 car. Neither really exists and if they do they probably don't run or are about to completely implode.

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emotionaI_cabbage@reddit

Yeah...

Spent $3500 on a 2011 escape v6 with 137k kms

Should've done far more inspection before purchase because I've had to spend like 4k just getting it safetied and everything

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shloppin@reddit

Or they’re a sensor replacement away from being a $6500 car. Gotta find the sweet spot.

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JessieSav98@reddit

Cars in my area are like 3,000 for a 2002 Honda civic with 180k miles. I feel lucky finding a Subaru 2013 with 150k for 3k :(

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karmais4suckers@reddit

lol I came here to say $3k is the new $500 car

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Severe_Raise_7118@reddit

Just bought a 2012 rav4 v6 for $7k and I was really happy with that with the current market. Its hard not to reminese over the pre-covid car market. Toyota tax/inflation is real.

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Serious_Lettuce6716@reddit

$3k is the new $1500.

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I578855@reddit

Money lost its value. $500 in 2007 is the same as $3000 today. They're both the same amount of money.

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Positive_Yam_4499@reddit

Look for a mid 90's through mid 2000's Buick or other GM car with the 3800 engine. They are incredibly reliable and also easy to repair.

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Alternative_Share559@reddit

I bought a first gen tundra a few months ago. same thing. zero maintenance, interior hammered, not a straight fender on it, 250k miles. $3k. wtf?

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Legend13CNS@reddit

I just helped my GF buy a normal daily driver on a $5k budget and it's a wasteland out there. We're not even in an area with rust problems, not even looking for anything exciting, but the options were still awful. Everything at that price range is like 225k miles with small issues or lower miles but has obvious major issues. We basically had to spawn camp FB Marketplace for new listings and be the first person to figure out a price and a meeting with the seller when you come across a good deal. With the car we ended up buying we'd done everything but the sales transaction (banks closed on weekend) before the listing was 12 hours old.

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jbglol@reddit

Literally every Toyota truck holds value like that, this isn't anything new. They were just as expensive a decade ago when I was looking at buying my first car.

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Peelboy@reddit

I recently sold an older Volvo with a blown engine for 4k…I lived off sub $3,000 cars for years, actually my current car was free, it’s best on the outside but drives great

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sevykep@reddit

You can get $500 from a scrap yard…

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Viperlite@reddit

Or just sell the passenger seat.

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doubled112@reddit

Yes, I would love to have a spot to store cars while I parted them!

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IslandCity@reddit

I’d consider on of the FWD GM Sedans with the 3.8 V6 for that price range (if any are there), had a couple supercharged series 2’s for a short period of time and enjoyed them, they were just a little thirsty for me. I know the NA versions can have an issue with the intake manifold gasket (?) if I remember right but are otherwise relatively easy to work on and don’t carry the Honda/Toyota tax. Probably have more electrical gremlins though like window actuators and whatnot I’d imagine but I got lucky on my old 2 I think (Bonneville SSEI)

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mopar39426ml@reddit

I've got a $2500 Subaru in Pennsylvania that has an impending (manual) transmission issue of uncertain severity.

If it'll keep running it'll pass inspection for a couple years still and buy me time... We'll just see how much investment it needs.

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runway31@reddit

I love cheap cars

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BZJGTO@reddit

In 2015, I bought Land Cruiser with 205k on it for $10k. In 2025, it was totaled at 325k, and insurance cut me a check for $10k. It's crazy, don't know if the used market will ever return to anything close to pre-covid prices.

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CatastrophicCapybara@reddit

OP, definitely don't drive your $1500 car off a cliff for a $3000 insurance payment so you can afford a $6000 car. That would be wrong.

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The_Evil_Pillow@reddit

Comprehensive on a $1500 car?

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B5_S4@reddit

Comprehensive on any car you don't want to pay out of pocket to replace 🤷‍♂️ I had full coverage on my shitbox civic and when some dude t-boned me and ghosted the insurance Co the payout covered the entire cost of my next shitbox.

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Locksandshit@reddit

If you happen to be in the PNW and can scrounge $6000 I’ll sell you a mechanically rock solid fleet work truck(frontier) I just upgraded

But yeah , $3000 is not getting you much now days unless you’re mechanically inclined and can shop around for a few weeks. There is still a few diamonds in the rough

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hawaii-visitor@reddit

How the hell do you find a $1,500 car these days?

I've been looking for exactly that for weeks now and every single listing is a scammer. I'm not joking, I've contacted probably 20 people from listings and they all go exactly the same way:

Me: "Hey can I come see the car?"

Them: "Sure, but by the way I'm not actually located where the listing says I am. I'm actually in this secluded area."

Me: "Can you meet me at a subway stop? I don't have a car."

Them: "No, I don't have a license plate for the car. Secluded area only. Bring cash."

Me: "Absolutely fucking not."

Every single time.

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bravoromeokilo@reddit

Now that $3000 will get you a decent down payment on that $1500 car!