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How are your mechanic skills? How long do you plan on keeping the car? How important is mileage to you?
You can get decent "old combustion" stuff pretty cheap. I picked up my 1998 SL2 for a relatively high $3000. Its got leather, sunroof, etc. and is great condition. It had 100k miles on it. I enjoy buying things in this range as I can sell them in a year or two after driving 30 or 40k miles and the depreciation hit is very minimal (and sometimes zero). Also the required maintenance is still pretty low.
That said, if I planned on keeping a car longer than 3 or 4 years (which is very hard for me to do), I'd snag a used Prius as the money saved on gas would be enough to offset the depreciation and higher purchase price.
Finally, if I had zero mechanical skills, I wouldn't fault anyone for buying a new car for $13K that they are guaranteed to have no problems with. Those first 100K warrantied miles cost about 10 cents a mile more.
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