The skyrocketing cost of gas is forcing more people to consider buying used cars, even if they recently bought a new car.

Many drivers are keeping their SUV in the driveway and buying fuel efficient used cars from the 80s and 90s.

Rolling off the lot used to mean you were losing money, but drivers now-a-days are intentionally buying used.  They’re looking for a depreciated, older model to pay less upfront and get more miles per gallon.

“I live north of the river in Missouri and I work down in Lenexa,” Matthew Bitner said.  “So that 30 miles a day is now a gallon, which used to be four gallons of gas.”

Bitner traded his Kia minivan in for a Honda CRV, saving him a lot of money.

“Its a 50 percent savings, my car insurance went down because it’s not a minivan, my fuel went down, everything went down.”

At O’Neill Nissan, salesmen said used Hondas won’t stay on the lot long.  In some parts of town, there’s an eight week wait for a used Civic.  It’s up to eight months for a new one.

“Hondas, Toyotas, Civics and Accords are prime,” Country Hill Motors salesman Bob Worley said.

Worley said he is seeing a change in what his customers want.  Instead of good financing on the latest 2009s, drivers are looking to pay cash and leave with a car that is more than five years old.

“Cars that used to be bought for students are being bought for people to commute back and forth to work,” Worley said.

Worley said many drivers are buying used cars without trading in since they know their SUVs have lost value.  Drivers said it’s all about making their money work for them right now.

“I know everybody is looking for a deal and more importantly the gas mileage,” Bitner said.

Many buyers said they are going used instead of buying a $20,000 hybrid since they’ll get the same miles per gallon.