Lots of good advice in this thread.

Avoid leases. Avoid payments if you can. Save up the money and pay cash for a used car. Let me show you my methodology:

Car payments have interest on them. If you save $500 a month for 10 months, you can buy a $5000 car instead of paying $5500 in payments and interest. You just saved 10%.

Keep saving that $500 a month and driving that used car. At the end of a another 10 months, you can sell the $5000 car for about what you paid for it and buy a $10000 used car. Do this again, and in 30 months you will have paid cash for a $15000 car, which is a VERY nice car.

New cars depreciate a HUGE amount. Cars are now of sufficient quality that you don't have to worry about buying a used car, if you have a mechanic check it out and do routine maintenance. They will last a really long time. You can get a car with 50,000 to 100,000 miles on it and it will last for 250,000 to 300,000 miles. At average car driving rates, that's up to 16 years. Drive it until the wheels fall off, then buy another used car.

The general rule of thumb is that you want to drive it, and keep doing minor repairs and maintenance. Once the minor repairs become major repairs, then it's time to assess whether you need to replace the car. Once a major repair comes along that exceeds the market value of the car (replacing a $2000 transmission in a $1000 car) then replace the car.

Driving used vehicles makes much more financial sense due to depreciation and interest.

Once you buy a new car and drive it off the lot, you immediately lose about 40% of the value. In the first 4 years, Dave Ramsey says that most new cars lose 70% of their value. So buy a quality used car that is depreciated down, maybe 4-6 years old. Drive it until the wheels fall off.