Best Used Cars Under $5000

Buying a used car shouldn’t feel like pulling teeth. If you know what to look for, it should be easy to get yourself behind the wheel of something good for the right price. Unless it’s a cash sale, spending $5000 (or less) works out to roughly $88 a month, based on a 5 percent interest-rate auto loan of 60 months and no money down. That’s more affordable than even the cheapest new car available this year, but affordability sometimes has its risks.

At this price, cars will likely have racked up a bunch of miles or be old enough to have been around before ads on YouTube, but that’s par for the course. One of our options here began life with a starting price of $70,000. Come and embrace the warm glow of depreciation and look for something that’s both great and affordable—even if it takes an hour to vacuum after it arrives in your driveway.