For used cars, Scotty always says to stay away from car dealers and places like Carvana.
Where do people search for decent used cars? Local car lot? Craigslist? Word of mouth?
craigslist (by owner) seems to have good cars. Not all dealers are bad though in my area private party and dealers have similar prices and either way you need a mechanic to check it out and make sure it is good. I bought my 2009 Kia Sportage 10 years ago from Enterprise Car Sales, which sells rental cars, and it is still running strong with 130k miles on it.
if you can't find actual individual owners that's the best way Craigslist you can sometimes find the but a lot of them are sleazy car dealers having private individuals pretend to be selling you that car always check the title
Also, some dealers may not be that bad sometimes you can find a decent Toyota at a Mazda dealer which is in good shape.
i have had good luck on craigslist, (5 purchases) only ran into one sleezy deal around atlanta, said the title was in his name, but when he finally produced the title, it was not in his name, said he was selling for a friend, so i said get the friend over here so i can pay them lol
i always ask them if the title is in their name before going to look, most of the time they will admit to being a broker if not
one car had a title issue after i purchased it, learned a good lesson about north carolina titles, the title looked clean to me, but the mileage was not printed on the front of the title, so SC would not give me a clean title, has "exempt" on it, but it was still a good deal, probably never sell it, too much fun
be ready to pull the trigger too, once you know the car you want, the good ones seem to get taken quickly