Exactly. A Civic or Corolla probably would have cost more to buy upfront, but likely would have had much lower overall costs, especially when you include depreciation.
Lots and lots of 9-year-old Kias on cars.com are currently listed for $3,000 and up.
There is a difference between the value of something, and what a dealer will give someone who either doesn’t know better or doesn’t want to bother with disposing of the trade herself.
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And their Kia was “only” 9 years old.
Either 4:15 a.m. is too early for me, or I was padding it to make my point. 
Counter anecdote: In 2009 we bought a 5 year old Accord Coupe with 90k miles for $8400. Sold it 3 years later with 140k for $7500. So it cost us $25/mo or $0.018/mile depreciation. I don’t recall repairing anything on it. #notakia
That was a used car unicorn…book value on it was around $12k.
I’d say their mistake was the trifecta of used car ownership:
Overpay when buying 
Overpay for maintenance
Sell it to a low-baller for peanuts
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Unfortunately with the maintenance issues it had, we couldn’t even get someone to offer her $1000 on the private party market 
Yeah, unfortunately she got suckered into an overpriced used Kia the way that a lot of folks who are not very car savvy do.
My favorite used car story was from when I was 19, bought a four year old accord for $8k put on 25k in 2.5 years, got behind a salt truck that did some rock damage and gave me $2,700 in insurance payout, pocketed that, no maintenance other than oil, sold it for $6,000 for a net profit of $700 over the time I owned the car.
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