Way better just to save up and pay cash for a good used car.... or use a credit card (ideally on a low interest rate) to make up the difference.
I really don't think it's a good idea to put the rest on credit card, you're charged interest on it monthly (and most credit cards are only low interest for the first few months at an introductory rate) and if you can't pay it off it becomes more of a burden than if you were to just get finance on a car loan in the first place.

I agree that paying cash for a car is a more sensible approach, however some people are just not able to do that.

I do have a car loan, it's for around $21k and my monthly repayments are $430. The car itself is an 06 Mitsubishi 380, we knew when we went into the loan that the resale value on these cars is almost non existant, so when we took the plunge and got the car, we knew that this car would have to last us for quite some time in order to get any value from it. I'm happy with this as the car I had before was a 92 Magna, on its way out but it did its job while I had it.

Anyway, that's just my 2 cents worth