to add to that.
buy german or japanese... VW, mazda, audi, beemer (if you wanna stretch to one) mercedes (maybe and A class?). the french arnt that bad, but if you want reliability and quality, go german and japanese...
I've got a 99 VW Polo 1.4. It is a little beauty, cost me 1700 which was quite a bit but it has alloys, electric mirrors, electrics windows PAS etc. Had it for nearly 18 months now and the only problems I had was a license plate bulb go on the back and a small hole in the exhaust causing it to blow. Apart from that it has been perfect. My brother jsut bought a citreon saxo and me and my dad have spent a fair bit of time on it now sorting out the odd problem here and there. So I can defiantly reccomend VW.