I bought my 2008 Toyota Sienna for $4500. I talked him down from $4900.

It had:

• 230k miles (269k now)
• an engine replacement (2010 with 91k miles less than the chassis)
• worn out sliding door rear hinges ($140 apiece), bad enough to be grinding on the body under the 3rd row windows
• broken power steering rack (found that a few weeks later)
• balding tires
• rattle-can patch job (black paint on factory black paint, not a huge deal for me)
• blown out rear shocks
• more that I forgot about (noted down in my records)

I bought that van because 1) it was a really good price, and 2) I knew what most of its issues were before I bought it and was able to fix it up. Also, I have 5 kids, so the minivan was a necessity.

$5000 is basically the bare minimum for a family car these days.