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me and starscream work for Vauxhall (General Motors Ltd) here in the UK so we are pretty clued up on the UK specs and can try to assist with others if you like?

Yep Superfella and I work for GM, so that in mind i'd recommend a diesel astra, say maybe a 1.7? (stay away from any car with a 1.9 - trust me)looks great, reliable and very good mile to gallon.

you get a lot of car for your money with Vauxhall, good cust service and a company very generous with out of warranty claims.

If you are buying new Chevy do some bargains in the UK, good deals are about but dont mistake them for a real American chevrolet.

and im still stuck here doing over time checking the emails from my canadian colleagues.

joy.

anyways. Starscream is 100% right, dont use a 1.9 engine from GM cos they have EGR valve trouble at the moment and as its your first motor, id be suprised if you bought something with a manufacturer's warranty still left on it.

i only passed my test last april, i drove a 11 year old renault clio for the first 6 months, then bought myself a 3 year old Vauxhall Astra once i was comfortable with being on the road on my own.

both cars are great for what they were bought for, the clio only cost me £250, and the Astra is modern, its quick with decent MPG and its far more comfy than it looks, thanks to the sports seats.

id put a photo up, but unfortunately the only one I have is of the rear door where some woman drove into me about 3 weeks ago and dinted my motor, and id rather take a better one to show off than a one of my car looking poorly!

dont you think thats maybe a tad out of his price range... you know... considering it's his first wheels an all?

though i agree its certainly a better car than my Vauxhall Astra. and

and in response to grish, ive worked for GM for coming up to 2 years now, and whilst I concede that there are a few problem areas which have arisen, they are no worse than any other manufacturer for problems that regularly occur.

last i checked, GM were still the 2nd most popular brand behind Ford, so we are obviously doing something right. and whilst there are things which go wrong on a GM car, you should expect it on any make or model, cos thats just the mechanical nature of vehicles.

i can definately say that our customer service is pretty much spot on, as we are encouraged to find a reason to pay for a repair, rather than finding reasons not to pay.

not that im defending my job or anything...

As Willmark, Cornixt, and Grish said about either Honda and/or Toyota.  You can't beat them.  I haven't owned anything but (at least for my primary transportation) for years now.  They are just about the most reliable cars on the road in the price range.  I had a 4Runner I bought with the 4 cylinder (22RE) engine and I drove it 70,000 more miles (above the 180,000 it had on it when I bought it) and the only problem I had in 4 years was a brake master cylinder go out.  It was unstoppable...well, literally when the brake master cylinder went out.    Sometimes I wish I would have kept that truck.  Especially with today's gas prices.

I've had my current 4Runner for 2 years with no problems at all, and my old commuter Honda I bought I had to replace the driver's side drive axle right when I got it, but it's been great ever since.  And I drive 130 miles a day round-trip so I put the car to work.    Also my neighbour has the exact same model/color car that Kera has, and they love it.

Scion is also a product of Toyota and they are kind of interesting models.  If I were buying a new car right now for me, I'd probably look at one of the Yaris models from Toyota.  They are kind of interesting looking but pretty small and get really decent mileage.  If you're looking for a used car, Honda Civic, Toyota Corolla, or even a used Scion or Yaris might be worth looking into.  Honda made a Civic HX model that gets over 40mpg and you can get them for well under $6k...at least you used to be able to.  Haven't looked lately.

By no means are any of the cars I mentioned "Eleanor-quality" but who can really afford to drive something like that right now anyway?  Last year I had a '68 GTO I finally had to sell off to make the downpayment on my house.  Loved that car, but I couldn't afford to drive the thing today for sure.  

Good luck with the search!

[attachment=619]a black '67 chevy impala

I think Kera had a good, totally unbiased idea with her suggestion.

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