Thanks for the reply - I've also noted the points made on the other thread.

The Civic would be ideal but a quick search tells me for the same age and mileage as the Kia they seem to be about £2-3K more (around the £11-12K mark) which feels expensive. Especially as after 3 years we are likely to have put 75,000 miles on the car we buy which is extensive depreciation in a short amount of time. At the moment I feel like this budget over a 3 year period makes the most sense, even if we have nothing to re-sell at the end of the 3yrs. Hopefully not but with this commute we have never had a car to resell, both cars over the last 2 years have not lasted (they were older cars, Peugeots, worth around £2,500 at time of buying). So we are hoping by putting a bit more money in and a warranty we can get something that survives the 3 year mark.

Its a tricky situation when limited on budget, if we had a few thousand more I'd probably be looking at a different model thats be around longer.

I forgot to add that if you are doing long distances, try to get a Cee'd with '3' trim as cruise control is very useful, particularly when average speed cameras are becoming more and more prevalent; it also makes motorway driving more relaxing. When we ordered the Picanto we had to go for '3' trim because of the cruise control as even the X-Line and GT-line variants (apart from GT line S) didn't have cruise control.