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    Best Used Cars and SUVs Under $15,000

    These models performed well in our tests and have strong reliability ratings

    2016 Acura RDX on green background
    Acura RDX
    Photo: Consumer Reports

    Used cars are always a good value because a prior owner has taken the depreciation hit, making their loss your gain. Even though the average cost of a used car through the fall of 2024 was $25,239, there are plenty of reliable and safe vehicles on the market for half of that amount.

    To better focus your search, we dug through years of test data and hundreds of thousands of survey responses to find the best used cars between $10,000 and $15,000.

    MORE ON USED CARS

    The models below (listed alphabetically by segment) are the ones we’d recommend to our friends and family. Each has standard electronic stability control, an important safety feature. Some were also available with active safety features such as forward collision warning (FCW), automatic emergency braking (AEB), blind spot warning (BSW), and/or rear cross traffic warning (RCTW) as optional or standard equipment when they were new.

    These vehicles performed well in our tests when new, and consistently demonstrated multiple years of much-better-than-average reliability in our Annual Auto Surveys.

    Of course, even for the used cars we recommend, there can be outliers. Maybe a former owner didn’t care much for car maintenance, or there was a problem at the factory the week the car rolled off the line. Before you buy, make sure to pay for a thorough inspection by a certified mechanic so that there are no surprises down the road.

    This article is available to CR members.

    See the Used Car Top Picks and Which Brands Make the Best Used Cars?

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    We investigate, research, and test so you can choose with confidence.