Also consider Lexus. It's Toyota, of course, and may actually be less expensive than a Toyota. In my experience it was.
For my oldest, we bought an inexpensive 15 year old Camry. It needed a bit of work, which was relatively inexpensive. The downside is that 15 year old Texas cars do have items that start to deteriorate (plastic, rubber, etc.), so there was the occasional stall, etc. that started to worry me.
After someone rear-ended the car, we went a little more upscale, primarily for the added safety features and the lower likelihood of mechanical failure. But, we stayed in the Toyota space. This was around 3-5 years ago and things have definitely changed, but we found that a 6-8 year old Lexus RX350 was less expensive than a Highlander of similar vintage (around $14k-16k). We dealt with the local Lexus dealer and got a single-owner RX350; bought at the dealership and traded in; and EVERY maintenance activity and repair had been done at the dealer. Vehicles of this ilk are not that rare, actually. Plus, they are not beat to hell, in general.