OP, a relevant data point that is missing is if you have reliable transportation right now? If you do not have reliable transportation, you need that and cannot wait on a car.

Again, at your age and assuming you’re not tied down by a wife and kids, I’m going to say you need to get a side job to pay this car off as fast as you possibly can. Reliable transportation is critical to getting promoted, anxiety, etc.

If you’re going to commit to this car deal, at this interest rate, you need to dedicate all your free resources to paying it off. The reason is you’re basically putting the car on a credit card. (My credit cards have been under 13% all of my adult life (excluding rewards cards)). Paying it off aggressively as possible will help counteract that ridiculous interest rate, making it irrelevant.

20% down rule, 36 month financing, 8% gross to payments, I’m coming up with a maximum value of about $11,059. It doesn’t have to actually fit in that box, but the maximum value is what I think is reasonable. You can finance for longer, or have less down payment, but you shouldn’t spend $20,000 in your situation.

I would also research rates with credit unions. In my market you can get 4.5% for a car under 10 years old. If the car is old the rate is about 7.5%.

You could let it roll at 13%, but I would get a second job and work like crazy for 12-18 months to rapidly pay that down. It’ll still establish your credit and you won’t pay as much of a penalty from interest. Another thing is you could refinance to a better rate as your credit builds. Your credit will drop, but should be higher than when you started by month 12 with perfect payment timeliness and everything else being equal.