After this mornings accident, im fairly sure the car is a write off..
I've got 12k to spend on a car that I plan to keep for atleast 5 years..
What im after..
-Fuel economy (I travel about 500km a week)
-Comfort, usual power features + Ipod/ AUX + bluetooth would be nice
-Reliability & maintenance costs (my VW sucked!)
-Resale
-Comfortable for a 6'1 driver and enjoyable to drive
-prefer manual
Im looking at
-03+ corolla's (old man and everyone else swears by them) not sure which ones are best bang for buck
-mazda 3, big fan of the newer models (03+), unsure on reliability, saw an sp23 (04) at a yard going for 9k (114k odo), on start up with the oil cap off it was blowing a fair bit of oil.
-yaris, bit small, ugly dash, only slightly better in fuel.
-getz, 7l/100km, many people's experiences online beg to differ (10+), cheap, don't think I would enjoy it after time.
-FOG, live in an apartment and share the car spot with my motorbike so the car is a little to big, it would suffer in resale down the track. On the plus side my old man is a cabbie, so part's and knowledge is plentiful, and I know how reliable these are.
-i30, perfect! out of my budget.
So at this stage I think it may be the rolla, any good cars that I may have missed.
Thanks in advance
Thomas