That's not Dave Ramsey's mindset. His advice is to buy a beater for the short period you're paying off non-mortgage debt and building a full emergency fund, that's only 1-3 years for most people. Then you start building savings for the better car, while also investing for your future.Being 10s of $thousands in debt shouldn't be comfortable...

I'd only want to spend 200 to 300 tops ND that would be on a cheap older truck.

I have two paid off and that does the trick for now.

For me personally, I just don't know about a car payment for a long time again. If I can't pay it off in under 3 years I'm not doing it. I've learned my lesson. I've had a few car payments in my day. Damn, that new shiny car is sure tempting. First year or two the payment didn't bother me, but after that it did. If I knew I would have it paid off within that year I'd be okay, but knowing I had 3 more years of payments.... fuk that. I never defaulted nor was I ever late BUT just annoyed me and made me not like the vehicle even though I actually did like the vehicle.

The value of the vehicle should be what's kept in mind and your total payment should also be kept in mind. Cheaper cars aren't always a better value. Beaters are usually more trouble than they are worth especially if you aren't good at fixing it yourself or good at figuring what to buy at that lower price.

I drive my old 2002 Silverado pickup with 377K miles on it. Starting to burn coolant so I'm going to have to make a choice on it real soon. Do I retire it and buy something else, or do I fix it, again?

I think it depends on the body of the truck and obviously the issue. You can find a junkyard motor for that for nearly nothing too. My friend had one of those, beat the chit out of it for 200k miles and it still ran perfect without much maintenance at all.