My uncle says buy the $2,500 car and save the rest, my coworker says spend all $5,000 on one car
Last Saturday I was at a cookout in Modesto and my uncle goes "never spend more than half your budget on the car itself, the other half is for the stuff that breaks in month one." Then my coworker chimes in and says that's dumb, just drop all $5k on the cleanest Civic you can find so you're not fixing junk right away. I'm sitting there with $4,800 saved trying to figure out who's right. Uncle's point is a $2,500 car plus $2,300 in parts means you know what you got, but my coworker says you're just buying someone else's problem twice. Which camp are you in?
Did you see that Jalopnik piece where the guy bought a cheap car and tracked every repair for a year? The total ended up way under what a nicer car would've cost him, so I'd lean toward your uncle on this one.