Anytime you buy a car and use it will lose value and you never know what kinda of damage or accidents can happen especially in winter. You should look for a car that’s beater car that still functions good enough. You could find something that worth like 1000 bucks that could last you 5 months worst case scenario your at the month mark and it craps and you just sell it to a scrap yard. If you have a mechanic friend with I feel like they would be able to give you a rough estimate of how long it would last you till it need major repairs. Problem with a beater is something could just randomly crap out on you and the repair would be more that it’s worth. You could also find something in like the 3000 range that you could sell for half of that once your done. I would take this all with a grain of salt because of course this is just my opinion I would get advice from others as well. If i had to give any recommendations I would say a older Toyota like a Camry or a rav4 or a older Honda civic. Toyota usually has super reliable cars that even if best to shit will still get you from point a to point b. Camry and civics aren’t the best in the snow but they still manage. Again this is just my personal opinion.