Here's my hack, that may not be acceptable to everyone: pay cash for your car, settle for whatever you can afford, pay yourself car payments. Buy something ugly. I stared with an $800 POS and made it last for 3 years...I paid myself a modest $250/month "car payment" during that time, so I ended up with $9k in cash. Finally got tired of driving that thing and it just wouldn't die, so I kept an eye out for used cars in my new price range. It took a while because I was just searching off and on, but eventually I found an especially ugly Scion xB (bright yellow edition) that had been on the market for a few months with no interest, so they were already asking significantly less than KBB value, since I was paying cash I got them to take even less for it (after having my mechanic look at it of course). Of course if you mind having a goofy looking car, this strategy might not save quite as much money.