Is it smarter to totally cheap out and have an unreliable car that breaks down, stranding you, causing you to miss work though? If you're in a line of work that's customer facing, where having a beater of a car is going to hurt your job prospects? Without knowing the rest of the context, absolute statements based on absolute numbers is also dumb.

How many months is this car loan? What was the down payment? What's the interest rate? We haven't even asked what kind of car it is yet.

Cheap car =/= unreliable car. Expensive car =/= reliable car.