Then don’t buy a new car? Buy used.
In 1998 I bought a used 1989 Chevy Corsica for $1,800 all-in out the door. I'll admit I don't remember how many miles it had but it never had any major problems in all the years I drove it. There was a near unlimited sea of options for ~10 year old cars for around $2,000.
In 2023, if you want a similar size 10 year old car (2013) a quick Googling suggests you'll be paying about $10,000 minimum for a car with 100-120k miles on it. Expect to pay $20,000 if you want a low'ish amount of miles (under 25k). Keep in mind this is the price on the website which you know will be more by the time you really purchase it.
It's not quite that much. You calculated inflation off 1989 when the sale happened in 1998.
An inflation calculator puts $1,800 @ 1998 being worth $3,375 @ 2023. It's a massive difference in how much more expensive an inflation adjusted car is nowadays.
The only car we had problems with was 10 year old Jeep for my son that we had to keep taking back for various things for the first couple of months.
The manager proactively reached out to me and offered to reimburse one month payment. After those two months, we never had a problem with it.