Thing is, if you need a car you cant afford to not have one. My options are buy a used car or a new car. Used cars are difficult to gauge reliability. And anything less than 5 years old is only ~5k under the price of a new car.
Mf subaru people had the gall to show me 2018 forester with 20k miles on it and be like “$29,000”. For reference, a new, 2023 forester with no miles costs $31,000. Insane.
Your choices are currently: buy a reliable used car for the MSRP of a new car and less warranty, buy a very old, unreliable used car for 2x-6x what it was worth 3 years ago, or buy a new car at or above MSRP.