You also need to consider your use-case - ie do you drive a lot daily? How many people do you need to accomodate? How often do you haul stuff and how much?
If you don't put on many miles, you don't need to look for extreme good-mileage cars. You could save a lot upfront getting a "gas guzzler" - how many extra gallons of gas could you buy if you got a $3000 cheaper car?
Also if you "need" to do certain things, but very infrequently, remember you can rent a car/van/truck for a few days for usually surprisingly little. A lot of people who lived in the city did that, no need for a car during the week they walk/bike/bus/uber to work and only really needed a car once every couple of weeks to run errands, I did that for years HUGE savings not having to pay for a full time car/insurance/parking.
If you're buying a used car, take it to a mechanic you trust and pay to have a full inspection done. If you don't know one, you'll need to do some research to find one - and don't just let your dad do it if he insists, it's a whole different ballgame from a full time pro with experience with recent cars and the professional equipment to do tests. Pay for the Carfax and look out for accidents, something minor might be OK but it's hard to tell when it crosses the line to "hidden future problems". Also unfortunately stuff doesn't always get reported, so make sure the mechanic looks for things like flood damage.
I live in the city, don't put on a lot of miles so I generally opt for a big old gas guzzler - for my case anything new or expensive is just money flying away as it depreciates. I don't have to stress about minor dings and insurance is massively cheaper. I accept it's going to need a few more $$ a year as things wear out, but it's a common car and generally cheap to have work done (and I have a great super-trustworthy mechanic). My favorites were the Ford Crown Victoria/Mercury Grand Marquis/Lincoln Town Car, sadly alll discontinued 10 years ago. You used to be able to find very nice ones, especially the Grand Marquis, for really good prices.
I kind of looked at SUVs a few years ago, my go-to was probably going to be a RAV4, 4-8 years old. Good luck finding a reasonably priced one now, unfortunately
My mechanic highly recommended Toyotas in general - kind of boring but reliable and keep their value. Once you're narrowing in on a brand/model, do some serious google searches for common problems with that model for the specific years you're looking at, if it's something big that hasn't already been taken care of it's likely to be your problem soon. The new vs used has narrowed some because of high used car prices recently though, so it's definitely not as cut and dried as when I was weighing the factors.
Good luck!
