In this market, noone is lenient. IF you got financed, it would end up being through alternate financing at 15+ plus interest rate.
The fact that you are in this situation actaully proves the credit situation is more immediate. Perosnally, I would deal with the wrangler for awhile. I have 2 kids and I understand they are horrible fmaily cars (when I had my second kid, my car was a mustang...not much better)
I would do some serious looking through this website and your credit file. You would be amazed what some elbowgrease and paper and ink can get accomplished in a month or two. See if there are any accounts that are disputable, if there are any collections offer to pay as long as they delete (search PFD), and send goodwill letters (GW's) to any and all accounts with any negative info on them.
Last, if you have cc debt, get all CC's paid down to under 9% of their balance and keep them that way. You will get your credit up.
Then once you do that, you should be able to get a car from your local CU, or the dealer.
The problem with rushing out right now, is that even if you find a dealer that is willing to finance you, they will know they have you over a barrel. You can't negotiate because few if anyone will finance you right now. They will rip you off on the price, and then rip you off on the financing. At the end, you will end up so overextended on the car that working on your credit to get stuff paid down off may not even be possible.
I have had similiar situations several times in my life and always made the short term decision and it wasn't until the last year that I realized that those decision were the cause of all those situations because I was always making bad long term decision for the short term gain and when the next "emergency" came up, I was not prepared becuase I was still paying for the last "emergency"
