Running the numbers it looks like if you want payments of $200/month you’d be looking at a 6% 5-year loan of about $10,500. Add in your down payment of 2K-4K and you’d be looking at these type vehicles–>>
Hmmmmmmm. Lifestyle questions:
Single?
Partnered?
Kids? If so, how many?
House or apartment?
Haul building/repair materials or lumber, much?
Long drive to work?
Heavy traffic?
Are you notably tall?
Maintenance costs for good 2-3 year old cars are still negligable. You can get a lot more car, or pay off your car earlier, without sacraficing hardly anything if you look for a good used car with relatively low milage. I keep my cars for 7-8 years and 120-150K miles and I haven’t had any real maintenance issues until over 100K on any of them.
My household is a Saturn Family. We are on our 3rd (by choice) and have enjoyed all that we have purchased from them. We like thier sales tactics (no hassle, no haggle) and have never had problems with the vehicles themselves (minus the few minor recalls, but all have been taken care of professionally). We have had a SL2 (wifes old car), an Ion 2 (wifes new car) and a Vue (mine). I had my Vue for less than a month when I was rearended (I was stopped, the 18 year old girl wasn’t paying attention when she slammed into the back of me). Her car was totalled, I needed a new rear bumper and rear liftgate, that was it… Not exactly sure what you are looking for, but I can’t say anything bad about our Saturns… (both new cars have a 5 year bumper to bumper warantee, so that is good too…)
Any time anyone under 6’4" asks me what car they should buy, I always recommend a Honda Civic. I have several friends who own them, and the damn things are freakishly reliable, often running for hundreds of thousands of miles with little to no maintenance. They also get excellent gas mileage.
Buy a Civic, new or used. The money you save on gas and maintenance will add up to quite a lot over the life of the car.
Seconding the recommendation of a Honda Civic, and also seconding the POV that maintenance issues are best addressed by buying a good quality car, not a good quality warranty.
I drive a Honda Civic Coupe (aka 2-door), with all the bells and whistles Honda offers – which aren’t many, but include sun roof, electric doors and windows, CD player. I bought it new in 2001 for just over 15K. Other than body-work – the car is named The Deer-Slayer because I hit two deer with it – I have never put a dime in it except for routine maintenance (tires, oil changes, etc.). It has 118K miles on it and runs just as well as it did the day I bought it. Plus, it is a solid car; no squeaks or rattles like you get with a less well-made car that’s been vibrating and shaking for over 100 thousand miles. And I think Civics look nice. They’re not sex machines, but they have a nice profile. They drive great on the highway, too.
Buy a Civic and don’t worry about the extended warranty. Take reasonable care of the car and you won’t need it.
IMO, a used Honda Civic is going to be a better car than many new American cars. And you can easily get a used Civil for under 15K.
If you like the Civic, you’ll LOVE the Toyota Corolla. Virtually identical to the Civics, except with a few more ponies under the hood - you say you don’t care about power, Gozu, but if you’re highway driving a lot, you’ll appreciate a car that isn’t completely underpowered. Not that the Civic is underpowered - we took our 2005 Corolla to Las Vegas and back (about 5000 km, if I recall correctly), and it was slightly underpowered for highway conditions, so I imagine the Civic is worse. The Toyota Camry is also an excellent car, but getting a little pricey (similar to the Honda Accord, which is arguably the best economical car available). Rumour around the car industry is that Honda used to build the best cars, but are resting on their laurels now.
The Hyundai Sonata is a very nice car for not too much money - we didn’t buy one simply because they don’t offer them in a manual transmission in Canada. And the local Hyundai dealerships all suck, but that’s a story for another day.
If you want a new and ridiculously reliable on your budget, look at the cheapest models from:
Toyota
Honda
I’d say Subaru, too, but their base models don’t quite fit your payment criterion.
If you want used and reliable, don’t buy any of the above.
Reliable Japanese cars hold their value TOO well.
You could get a 3-5-year-old base model domestic or Korean sedan for a little more than half of the money a new Honda would run you.
These models have quite a bit of life left in them, and if you like to trade in your cars after three years anyway, you won’t really notice the reliability difference; that’s a matter for the 8+ years and 120K+ crowd.