BEST CARS FOR BAD CREDIT

Best Car Research Sites

Portals

Autos.msn.com has excellent information on reliability, but autos.yahoo.com has information from Consumer Reports. We encourage everybody to look at the annual Consumer Reports auto issue; it's the Gold Standard when it comes to vehicle research.

Specialty Sites

Lots of competition about who's the best, so we'll list them in alphabetical order, including cars.com,, edmunds.com and traderonline.com.

Pure Fun

Take a moment to read Dan Neil's 50 Worst Cars Of All Time. He may be a Pulitzer Prize winner, but he's probably the funniest writer of which you've probably never heard.
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We'll Start With New Cars and Proceed To Used Car Deals

Welcome to our research on best cars for bad credit customers, cars in the $10,000, $12,000 or $15,000 range. We'll start with new cars first.

Rising gas prices are forcing manufacturers to pay more attention to subcompacts, and so far this year, they've accounted for 20 percent of all sales. Subcompacts are not only easy on gas, they are generally the cheapest cars on the lot. The Chevy Aveo may get picked on by auto writers, but you can find a brand new Aveo for under $10,000.

Another subcompact of note is the Kia Rio, which has been the highest rated subcompact in J.D. Power's ratings for the last two years. Be advised that the Hyundai Accent is essentially the same car (it's what's known as a same platform vehicle). Both can be found in the $10,000 to $13,000 range, depending on options.

Perhaps the company most attuned to bad credit car customers is Suzuki, which has four models -- all brand new -- that start under $15,000. The vehicles generally do well among experts, and hold up fairly well in reliability studies, too.

And finally, two notes from April 08. One, Consumer Reports picked the Toyota Yaris as the cheapest vehicle to own for the first five years. Second, CNN/Money, Kelley Blue Book and AOL Autos teamed up for a list of Top-10 cheap cars. The list included the Suzuki SX4 (at $15,400, the cheapest all-wheel drive vehicle on the market), the Mitusbishi Lancer and the Honda Fit (both around $14,600). MORE >>