Install the spare. Drive as little as possible until you replace the tires. No highway driving unless your spare is rated for it.

How old are your tires? Tread depth isn’t everything. Tires harden and become useless after 5-10 years from the date of manufacture, depending on the compound. You start to see things like sidewall cracking when they’re well and truly dried out.

If you’re not sure when your tires were made, check the date code molded into the sidewalls.

Not here it ain’t, lol.

Unfortunately, “reliable” and “Jeep” don’t play nice in the same sentence. I get the allure, but unless you’re ready and willing to put in a lot of time in labor and money in parts, they’re not what you’re looking for.

You may not think you’re looking for a Toyota, but you’re looking for a Toyota. In 2016 I bought a 2009 Camry LE with 142,000 miles. I’ve put 52,000 miles on it since. It’s needed exactly five oil changes, two sets of brake pads, two sets of tires (one that I had installed the day I bought it), and two sets of wiper blades. It sometimes sits for months at a time from spring to fall, when I mostly drive my other cars. But whenever I need it, I know that I can hop in and turn the key. It WILL start. If I need to drive a thousand miles to Kansas on short notice, it WILL get me there and back. That’s peace of mind you can’t put a price tag on.

I would advise that you hold off and save until you can put in at least $7,000 for the car and another $500ish to cover tax, title, and any other fees and initial maintenance you need to do. At $5K, you’re going to be facing an uphill battle to get something decent and reliable. If you get yourself to $7K, you can start looking at some solidly built vehicles in good condition. You’re not far off the mark, and I know a year feels like an eternity, but it’ll blow by in a blink and your future self will thank you. As for financing, the best prices are always available from private party sellers, and financing those isn’t really done. Maybe see if you could get a loan for the balance from a parent and pay it back monthly to them.

The reason $5K won’t cut it is because it just so happens that the market’s magic number is around $7K right now to get into a new-enough reliable vehicle in good condition. You can’t really get around this by looking at higher mileage because reliable vehicles tend to hold their value. Do not compromise by buying a previously crashed car or one from an owner who can’t provide the car’s maintenance history; cheap Toyotas are cheap for a reason.

To demonstrate just how little these things depreciate, I bought my Camry for $7,500. I looked up how much that exact car costs today. Here’s the first listing that popped up. https://www.carfax.com/vehicle/4T1BE46K89U270038. You guessed it. $7,499. Granted, that’s at a dealer, so the price is marked up, and used car prices have not fully recovered from their trip to the stratosphere during COVID. But a GM or Ford from 2009 goes for a little over half that. The reason is that reliable cars do not depreciate much, if at all, with age once they get past their first few years; nor do they depreciate much with mileage, but unreliable cars drop like rocks. This example has over 283,000 miles, and Carfax says it’s still worth $5,600. https://www.carfax.com/vehicle/4T1BB46K09U082171. It probably is.

So, save up a bit more and get yourself a 2010+ Corolla or Camry in good condition, never crashed, with a consistent maintenance history. Here’s hoping for years upon years of trouble-free ownership.