Cheap Car Auctions

Hello Yahoo peeps, While on vacation our transmission went out! We hauled it to a uncles house (2 hours away from our home), and my sister gave us a ride back home. We’ve gotten estimates at around $1,200 to replace it. We’re without a car, thank god my daughters school is only a few blocks away.

We’re trying to find out if buying a car from a public auction would be cheaper and last us longer.

The car that broke is a 2002 dodge neon with 140k miles.

Where can we look or call to find out where there are public auctions with good used cheap cars??
Please help us out!