I have a 2008 Honda Civic two door. I bought it new, and it's up over 111,000 miles now. When I bought it, Honda had recently rolled out the Accord coupes, and I thought they looked fantastic. I've always had small cars, and when I test drove the Accord, it felt enormous. I test drove the Civic and immediately liked it. Mine is a manual transmission, and I think that makes it more fun to drive despite the small engine. I have no complaints. There's some very minor paint chipping on the front edge of the hood, and one of the coat hangers in the back won't flip up. Not bad for eight years.

My next car is an ongoing struggle for me. I could probably afford to pay more than I did for the Civic. I was looking at BMW 2 and 3 series, and the Focus RS looks great, too. But when I stop and think about prices, would I rather have a Focus RS or an Imprezza plus $10,000? I can think of a lot of things I'd enjoy doing with that money. So I'm back to looking at cars under $25,000 again. Smaller, decent fuel economy, decent practicality, and AWD are the things I'm looking for. It's too bad the Focus ST is only FWD.