Categories: Cars

Safest used cars for under $20,000? Toyota, Mazda top list

Want a car that’s safe, reliable, and affordable? Want a million bucks? The former is more likely than the latter thanks to the annual list of recommended gently used cars released by the IIHS and Consumer Reports on Wednesday.

The list targets parents shopping for teen drivers but it applies to anyone looking for a safe, reliable, used car that costs less than $20,000. Seven Toyota models qualify for the “Best” tier of choices, while four Mazdas qualify, representing two-thirds of the small automaker’s lineup.

This year, 58 models qualify for the consumer advocates’ recommendations, up from 46 on last year’s safer newer cars list. In addition, all vehicles on the list have at least an “Acceptable” rating on a driver-side front crash test, and the top tier of vehicles come with automatic emergency braking proven to slow or stop a car before impact with another vehicle. The IIHS finds that such technology cuts front-to-rear crashes in half. Last year, more than 95% of new vehicles made came with the technology as standard.

In addition, market forces have helped inflate this year’s list.

“Vehicles continue to get safer, and for the first time since the pandemic-era disruptions, prices on the new and used market have stabilized,” said Jennifer Stockburger, director of operations at CR’s Auto Test Center. “These trends have enabled us to point families to even better options this year.”

Even though traffic fatalities decreased in 2023 for the first time in years, down to 40,990 fatalities from a record 42,915 in 2021, teen crash rates still occur at nearly four times those of other drivers. The number of fatalities involving a teen driver—which had been the highest cause of death for children through the age of nineteen until it was recently surpassed by firearm-related deaths—was 5,339 in 2022, according to the National Safety Council.

The IIHS and Consumer Reports recommend cars based on sensible safety factors in addition to ones equipped with certain technology. They stress shoppers to avoid high-horsepower cars that can tempt even the best humans to do dumb things. The full list also excludes small cars that weigh less than 2,750 pounds, which offer less crash protection. On the other end of the spectrum, bloated full-size SUVs or trucks are omitted for how long it takes them to stop and for handling that’s harder to control. They’re also much harder to park in school parking lots.

Additionally, the recommended vehicles below must have:

Above-average reliability, based on CR consumer surveys
Average or better scores on CR’s emergency handling tests
Good dry braking test results
Top “Good” ratings in four crash tests by the IIHS
At least an “Acceptable” rating in the IIHS small overlap test that simulates a head-on collision
At least a four-star safety rating from the NHTSA

Rounded to the nearest $100 for the base model, the prices are all pulled from Kelley Blue Book fair purchase prices as of April 19, 2024, but they exclude the mandatory destination fee.