Best Cars For Bad Credit Customers

Top Values In The $10,000 to $12,000 Range

For reasons too numerous to explain here, most bad credit auto loans are in the $10,000 to $12,000 range. So that got us to thinking -- where are the bargains in that price range? We'll break it into new and used.

First the good news. There are new cars on the market with an invoice price starting in the $10,000 range. The bad news is that once you add some desirable options, most of these cars creep up toward $15,000. Indeed, one of the top auto research sites on the Web, www.edmunds.com, uses $15,000 as its baseline for entry-level vehicles. (That's why we like the Ford Focus -- it invoices just under $13,000, but it has more standard features.)

The Kia Rio has been advertised as the highest rated subcompact car for two years in a row by J.D. Power. The Hyundai Accent is essentially the same car as the Rio and got fairly good marks from Consumer Reports.

Other entry-level new cars of note include the Chevy Cobalt, Nissan Versa, Toyota Yaris and the Honda Fit. Suzuki has four vehicles listed for under $15,000, and they score better than you would expect with the experts. Chrysler's new import, the Smart Car, got surprisingly good crash test ratings and qualifies as both dirt cheap and great on gas.

Proceed to best used car bargains for bad credit customers. >>>