My two cents on this matter is that no amount of coercion will change anyone's mind on what car they want. Men tend to be almost nearly fully decided on what they want. Ladies kuna room to convince but again mostly end up believing the 'mechanic' who in most cases is only able to fix japanese. Most of the mechanics and petrol station 'servicemen' fear euro models and so will always advise on something japanese in most cases a toy.
The thing is - buy the car that excites you - that you wake up at 1am to check kama bado iko kwa parking/garage. But jua kununua ni kama kuzaa, maintaining ndio kulea na hapo ndio kazi iko.
Problem is many buy what x bought and car ownership then hits them with an anticlimax week 1! Boring!
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Know something about your car whichever you buy. When I bought my Astra (2nd car after a B13), I joined 2 forums specifically targeted at owners of this car make and model. Most fixes I am aware of even before I go to the specialist. It's not expensive so parked outside my rented apartment, it still merged right in with the Premios (insanely overvalued) and NZE, Fielders, Carinas etc..
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Honda and Mitsubishi are always ahead technologically in the japanese pack. IF you get something from one of these guys, it will definitely be better than the equivalent toyota, but we mostly take them to the same petrol stations who end up fixing it the usual way and by the time it breaks you blame the make/model. Checki D4 kwa mfano - Mitsubishi had this ages ago - and many messed them up with shaky service and ended up hating Mistu, same case for CVT.
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