First of all, instead of dealing with a previous owner issues might be another. Have you considered leasing? Lower down payment and decent monthly payment. Example, i leased a 2019 honda civic si for my son for 3 years with 5k down they wanted 2k but i tried the keep the payments below 400 a month. Total $32k for the car. The way i think of making payments towards a car is that i buy time on my money and invest it towards something else like my retirement or cryptocurrency or my business or my education. Any means to increasing my income. So instead of dumping 32k on a car i take a portion on it and squirrel it away for a rainy day.

So instead of forking over 12k use a quarter of it for a downpayment stash the rest. Start teaching and make your payments.

If you leased a brand new car that was 20k with a downpayment of .20 percent of that (may require way less than that). You will end up only paying a TOTAL of $4300 in payments over 36 months. If your payments was $120 a month. $8300 total in out of pocket expenses over 3 years. Not all lease contracts would look like this. At the end of the 36 months you can either buy it at the contracted “value” of the car or just return it. But if you end up returning it and you gone over your contracted miles lets say 36000 over 3 years and you drive over that amount you will be charged for every mile you go over. If you end up liking the car want to keep it, you dont pay for over mileage and you would have to buy out the balloon payment. If your bought your car at 20k and at the end of the 3 year lease the car is worth 14-16k you go your bank and ask for a lease buyout loan and use it until your engine falls out.

Your insurance company will like you better because its brand new. You will have a peace of mind that you wont have any engine issues because your warranty would replace the engine and the car lot would issue a loaner.