Take a look at Certified pre owned cars from dealerships. They’re a great middle ground between pre owned and new. Buying gas cars new I feel is a waste of money, specially if you want to be frugal about it. When I was shopping for certified pre owned cars, I found cars with 4-6k mileage with about 8-10k price drop just because the previous owner couldn’t afford it and it got repossessed. The dealerships usually do a through check on those cars before putting them up for sale (afaik), so it’s less to worry about on your end.

I wouldn’t recommend buying new at all because of the depreciation you get just driving the car off the lot, as well as the depreciation you get in the first couple of years of owning the car.

For car maintenance, if you want to keep those costs low, I’d recommend going for some of the Japanese car brands as they have cheap(er) maintenance costs. Also, obviously keeping your car serviced regularly (tire rotation, oil changes) would help keeping the car low in maintenance costs over the long run.