Older Honda and Toyotas are excellent reliability... But what does that mean?  Basically that with normal maintenance, the engine and transmission will last a very long time. That's it.

That does not remotely mean there will be zero ongoing costs.  Every sub component on those is going to wear out at 60-80k miles, then wear out again, and so on.  Wheel bearings, ball joints, control arms, shocks, sensors, switches, etc etc. 

If you're going to do your own work with discount parts from the Internet, just call each "thing" $300. If you're going to a retail shop, call each one 1500

In a given year you may have zero "things" or you may have three things that account for $4500 which is what the car is worth.

So accept that reality, which is often where people go wrong.  They come to the Internet and say "I was told Honda is reliable, that's why I bought it, now I'm screwed and can't afford to fix my car"

The other reality with cheap cars is that often times people don't get rid of them until they start to become troublesome. Then they reach the point of "I'd rather put $4500 toward a new car than into this old car". And from there it becomes chaos on Facebook of guys buying these cheap cars, putting band aids on the problems, and quick flipping them. 

If you're going to buy a $5k car, I would only buy it from someone that can prove they've owned it at least a few years.. which is easy to do with the title