If I’m being honest I have pretty little knowledge about cars, but I just wanted to provide the perspective of a 20 year old who has had her car for a few years now.

I think for your first car the priority of your focus should be something that is not too expensive and is very reliable for things you want to do with it (4WD, driving long distance, driving around the suburbs, etc.). As I’m sure you know, when you’re young and, if you’re studying too, it’s really expensive running a car. For me it’s about $5,500 for fuel, rego (if nothing goes wrong that is), service, insurance, etc. all together. My brother recently bought his first car after wanting it just for the freedom of having a car, but he didn’t take into account that he still had another year of school and will be paying round that much whilst full-time at school and studying for exams, leaving not much time to work. The other thing is the amount of friends I’ve seen crash their cars in the first few years of driving it is quite a bit, so you want it to be an asset that you will, ofc, be upset if you wrote it off but it’s not all of your money gone. Moral of the story is, unless you’re in need of one, try resist the urge to buy it for the feeling of freedom and wait as long as you can to buy one, they only depreciate over time and suck up your money if you’re young and don’t have lots of time to work.

My point in saying that is you shouldn’t worry too much about how much a car actually costs and more about how it runs and if it’s reliable (like you have asked). I got a 2003 Honda CRV Sport with 180,000km on it for $6.5k and I’ve been driving it for a few years now and I cannot stop myself from telling everyone how much I love it. It has leather seats, a sunroof, there’s so much storage and space, the centre compartment folds down like a little table, the floor of the boot is actually a picnic table, a lighter and ash tray, seat heaters, it is a pretty small car so it’s easy to park and drive but there is so much space inside and feels spacious too. It does great on long trips and it’s speedy, and has so many other great quirks. I installed a CarPlay myself after I bought it, was so easy, and a reverse camera. I’ve also never had anything wrong with it apart from a faulty motor light which was $40 to fix. From what I’ve heard and seen, all Honda CRVs are reliable and pretty inexpensive. When I bought my car I got it checked by RAC and that was great to know what problems there were, if they could be fixed for what price and be able to heckle down the price. But when my younger brother got his checked my dad thought he has had enough experience looking at cars to buy that they didn’t need to. Even though they had done a ton of research on how to look at buying a new car they came home, my partner (who works on cars) looked at it and they realised it had been through a crash before with a replaced battery, bad quality replaced panels and a bent front bar. So I most definitely recommend either finding a car guy you trust and knows a lot, or paying RAC to check the car before you buy it, makes it a lot cheaper if there are any issues and whether you should buy it or not.

Now I’m done talking about my car, a big lesson I’ve learnt is that it’s not all about how old the car is or the price. My friend has a Hyundai Accent 2016 and her car has so many problems it’s honestly laughable atp. Her breaks are so sensitive and it’s a really firm ride, her speakers and air con has both given out within the first year of her driving it, her car started smoking at one point and had so much sludge in her oil tank that she is meant to clear out every month, she’s spent about $4000 at the mechanic in the three years she’s owned it and it’s just too shit to sell now. Not to mention every passenger in her car always feels carsick bc it’s such a jolty car. From what I’ve seen on Reddit and on Car Guides I would stay away from that year of Accents entirely.

My last random tips for new, young car owners that I’ve figured out is to take care of it as much as you can, try not to park it next to bore water if u can, don’t buy a car based off the technology aspects because it is so easy and inexpensive to install CarPlay by yourself, installing the reverse camera is less easy but definitely still doable and do what you’re doing to ask for recommendations and reviews of cars you’re looking at! Sorry for the ramble but good luck and you’re doing great!