You have my sincere sympathies. I know exactly what you mean. How does four hundred dollars for an alternator sound? Or three hundred dollars for a sealed headlight assembly? Of course, those prices do not include labor.
What this planet desperately needs is a dependable, simple auto that will just get us there and back without ruinous expense. But that's not going to happen. The big money is made producing over engineered money pits that guzzle fuel like there's no tomorrow.
I wonder how many people would buy a clone re-release of the original Volkswagen Beetle with a sticker price under five thousand dollars?