Woo, you're from Australia, so I know something of the topic!
If you're going to be doing lots of long drives on rural highways, I'd go the falcodore* route. Small cars can be rather shitty for that sort of driving, and their other advantages, light weight meaning lower city fuel usage, and small size, don't really count for much out in the country.
A more detailed description of your old car (and why it stopped working, and why you'd rather drop 10K on a new one instead of fixing it) and a more detailed description of your needs (eg, how much do you drive a year, how much is highway, how much stuff/mates/hangers on do you need to carry, etc) would probably help us give better advice, however you know what you want so can probably glean something more from what we say anyway.
However, as I said in the initial paragraph, i'd probably go the falcodore* route if you drive in the country on highways mostly. They are bigger cars, meaning you can fit more stuff in them (ever tried sitting in the back seats of a civic or corolla for a long drive?), and they have the added benefit of being a common home grown vehicle, so in theory parts should be slightly cheaper and easier to get, and more places being familiar with them (i'd imagine that a mechanic in Longreach would invest in the diagnostic software and service manuals for ford and Holden, but would they get the one for Honda? maybe not..)
Of course, you mentioned fuel useage in your main post, which is something that the the smaller cars do do better at due to their small size. However, once you dig deeper, you find that the highway fuel usage's aren't that different, you see, city useage is mostly governed by stop start traffic, hence a lighter car needs less fuel to bring up to speed. however, once you are on the highway, its all about your wind resistance, and weight becomes the minor factor. The commodore and falcon are not much bigger. Going by posted tests, not manufacturer claimed figures for the 2008 models, the civic gets about
5.9L/100km, the Commodore gets
7.2 and the Falcon gets
8'sNow, that's a difference of about 1.2L per 100km, and at a fuel price of $1.60/L (and that's for premium, not the 91octane that is their minimum requirement), that's $1.92 extra per 100km, or for an average of 10000km a year, $192. As you can see, that is sweet crap all difference, particularly since you can pick up some 2008 commodores with similar km's to that civic for as little as much as $2000 less
Edit: the other thing i forgot to mention is, despite how much a focus might be slightly more 'sporty' than a civic, or vice versa, the Commodores and Falcons have over twice the power, a much bigger power to weight ratio and decent chassis's aswell.
Moral of my post is, Don't focus on fuel economy too much, $1000 bucks of purchase price less probably buy's you 1L/100km more fuel for 5 years.
*portmanteau of The Ford Falcon and Holden Commodore, two competing locally made large family sedans that were the leading selling cars in Australia up until recently
Edit: I'd sell you my R32 skyline for the price range you are considering...
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Topic: Need a "new" car... (Read 3779 times)