if a poor person needed a car what would be their best bet. insurance, gasoline, original cost and maintenace would all factor in.
I woudl assume a toyota Echo is the best bet. a 2001 w/50k miles is about 5k if you shop around. mileage is about 38mpg and insurance is low im sure. any others.
i probably should’ve put this in great debates, althought its not a debate its an opinion poll.
If they’re going new, probably something Japanese. If they’re going used, still probably something Japanese. My Echo’s only required gas and the “regular care and feeding” (oil changes, tire rotations, etc.) and my insurance is pretty good, too.
A bus or a train. Too many hidden costs in car ownership.
If you have to own a car - thge people I know who own Echos are happy with them.
Where I live there are so many 10-15 year old Honda Accords on the road, I have to believe they were built to last.
I would reccomend the Civic or Accord based purely on my own experience, gas and insurance are probably equal to a comprable Echo
My Grandmother’s Accord lasted 12 years with 0$ in maintenance fees – nothing but gas, tire and oil changes.
A Civic a pal o’ mine bought used with 65K that he resold +6 years later with 140K and (basically) outlasted and WAY outpaced the mantainence cost on a new car another pal bought at the same time
A used Toyota Corolla another pal has has been excellent so far, but it retained its original price well — was 2 years old and not inexpensive
If you don’t need to finance and the cost of the car is very low you may want to think about the minimal insurance your state will let you get away with
Forget Accords (versus Civics). They cost more to buy, cost more to maintain, etc. One of my sons bought one last summer (against my advice) and is paying over and over for it.
Stick with the (nearly) bottom line model of a Japanese maker. Civics and Corollas are okay but since they hold value very well in the used car market, you’ll find them slightly costlier to buy. Mazda Protege is about ideal. Some Sentras are okay.
The best thing to do is check the Consumer Reports annual auto issue for good/bad used cars. It comes out in May, check your library.
The problem is, a lot of the used Japanese cars hold their value fairly well, whereas an American beater can be had for a couple hundred, so if you’re poor, you may not have the money for a better car.
my eleven year old honda accord is for sale. 
The main reason i thought the Echo would be a good deal is it is a toyota, and its even cheaper than the Corolla.
I ‘think’ Toyota made the Echo to give them an even better deal than Honda to appeal to poor people. Honda’s Accord and Toyota’s Camry are almost equal in price, and Honda’s Civic and Toyota’s Corolla are almost equal in price too so there was no real benefit of one over the other as they are both inexpensive, get good gas mileage and have low maintenance. However the Echo is even cheaper than the Corolla and Honda doesn’t have anything that inexpensive.
But because they are a new type of car they are hard to find. Its 100x easier to find a good deal on a Corolla than on an Echo. But like someone else said a japanese car doesn’t depriciate that fast.
Hyundais do depreciate rapidly but i dont know how reliable they are.
I’m not too sure about buses, but owning trains have a lot of hidden costs and fees for track usage, I don’t think this would be a good option for a poor person.
Also a lot depends on how the poor person intends to use the car, if all he needs is a station car, it might be well worth it to pick up a $500-$1000 piece of crap.