I bought my Toyota Echo brand new for $14k and some change. It does NOT have power windows, power doors, on-board GPS, or a lot of other bells and whistles I don’t need and don’t want to pay for.
When it was 5 years old I had dealers offering me $20k for it - which doesn’t make sense according to conventional wisdom or various sites that discuss new and used cars. For awhile they were very much in demand.
I think it’s now worth something around $3k blue book, but it’s a 14 year old car and if a dealer got ahold of it it would probably sell for more than $3k, being in good shape with only 117,000 miles on it. But I’m not selling it, because I believe I can keep this one for 20 years running as a reliable vehicle.
So yeah, I did something “wrong” by buying brand new, but given the results I think I got a fair deal out of it.
What this means is that in the real world there is a gap between theory and practice. Sometimes, you have to look around for what is actually the best deal actually available rather than what “should” be the best deal. Maybe this is a case there buying new isn’t such a bad deal. Maybe there’s an older car that is still mechanically sound (like my 14 year old Echo). Keep an open mind when looking for a deal.