Wrong forum; this forum is for Destiny discussion. Try Off-Topic. ;) I would go with the Civic or Scion. Honda means golden reliability. Scion has a Camry engine. My Camry has 260k miles on it and going strong. Have spent very little on it ($300 for manifold/cat).

C63 AMG. Fun car. I know.

If your a man you own a truck

Get any of them, as long as you don't put a cheap spoiler and a fart box on it.

Forget reliability, and gas mileage, go out and find an awd dsm. Preferably a 1g or late 2g, stay away from 95-97 to avoid crankwalk issues. You can get a 90 or 91 for relatively cheap and it's the most fun you'll have driving and learning about cars. What else will run low 13 second 1/4 miles with under $1k in mods and you can drive in rain, sleet, snow, and always have control. I've owned 7 of them since I was 20 and still have one to this day. When your friends dad buys them a vette or a mustang there's no better feeling then asking them to race, and then lowering the boom on their hopes and dreams. In case you don't know what a dsm is, its any Mitsubishi eclipse, eagle talon, or Plymouth laser. Just make sure it's the turbo all wheel drive version and you'll never look back.

#offtopic Also i say civic because rice and BBQ pork.

Mazda miata. Forget what anyone says about it being girly. They get good gas mileage, extremely reliable. And from a fun to drive stand point miatas are considered one of the ultimate enthusiasts vehicles. The gearbox is solid, the steering and handling is great, the motor is almost bullet proof. all around a great car to accidently hit parking curbs with and to accidently push too far and spin off the road. Better to get it out of the way now with a cheap car

Reading through the responses so far I'm seeing a few decent responses, and a lot of bullshit. Cars are basically one off my top interests outside of videogames, so let me throw in my thoughts, and let you decide if I'm any less bullshit than anyone else. Basically, this is really going to boil down to a few key things: specifically, how much can you afford on your initial purchase and per month (big down payment? Monthly budget $$$?), what are your long term goals and plans (college? Get married and start a family young?), and what qualities are most important to you (performance, reliability, frugality) - also, can you drive stick? Of the cars in your survey, the Hondas are going to be the safest/most reliable bets. The Civic will be cheaper to buy and own, but it's also much smaller, and on a personal note I can't stand the styling of the post-2006 models, or the split-level gauges for the driver. The Accord will be bigger and roomier and probably better as a family car down the road, plus the styling is at least inoffensive if bland. Regarding the others, the Acura isn't going to bring much to the table over the Hondas except higher price, uglier styling, and...not a whole lot else, really. Earlier Acuras had some bona fide performance benefits over their Honda counterparts, newer ones not so much. Acura is working on that with their newest stuff, but unless you have some serious money to play with a used Acura is a poor value compared to a lot of other things. The Dodge...skip the Avenger, unless your goal is V6 powah at the cheapest cost. Long term it's just not gonna hold up, and sadly that seems to be the case for most of the Fiat/Chrysler/Dodge cars out there. See a lot of folks recommend German cars- unless you're buying new, I can't recommend enough to stay the hell away from them. The vast majority of the newish used ones you'll see are either going to be lease cars that got pounded on for a couple years before their owners dumped them, or else were traded in right as they started manifesting the first of the myriad problems they're going to experience. As for the repairs themselves, expect them to be numerous and expensive, especially for Audi and BMW (guessing you're not shopping Benz at this point). I've heard the new Volkswagen Golf is quite good, but the long term reliability...eh, too soon to tell. I've heard too many horror stories and seen too many Volkswagens trolling around in various states of disrepair to trust them. Curious, didn't see any hatchbacks on your list. Not a fan? Too bad if you're not since they're eminently useful things to have, even if there's not a lot to choose from these days- basically either a Volkswagen, a Ford Focus or Fiesta, a Mazda 3, or a Subaru of some sort. Speaking of other things not mentioned, if you are wanting something fun to drive but still practical, the Mazda 3 is worth a look. Great handlers, reasonable enough fuel economy, good reliability. But, if you live anywhere where rust is an issue I'd stay away, they have a bad rep for rusting quickly. Not an issue where I am in the desert of SE Washington state, but could be an issue where you are. Subaru is another one worth considering, but probably only if you're somewhere with plenty of snow or other bad weather. Subarus almost all have AWD, which is nice for handling but you are going to lose some MPGs along the way. That's all I got for right now. Hope you enjoyed reading this, hope it helped, and let me know if you want to pick my brain about any other car stuff. Have fun, and good luck!