[Fat Charlie]

Welcome aboard!

14-15 mpg is actually good for one of those pigs. I was killing myself to get not much better, after years of hypermiling on the same roads under good conditions. When I finally got out of it, gas and payments on the Fit were right about where gas alone had been on the X.

My advice is to get anything small with a manual.

We've all got our needs and preferences, and here you're going to get advice for what works for people who aren't you, with goals, skills and conditions that aren't yours. But if you get something on the smaller side, it'll take less energy to make it move. If you get something with a manual, you'll be able to get more than just the performance an automatic decides to let you have (as well as being mechanically simpler and more reliable).