When my Subaru was rear-ended, I spent months thinking about what I would replace it with (and then a year to find the exact car).
My priorities were reliability, efficiency, total cost of ownership, utility, comfort, features, handling, speed, and lastly, looks.
The used cars I considered for various reasons:
Delorean
Toyota Corolla
Toyota Prius
Hyundai Elantra
Lexus IS250 (quickly dismissed)
Subaru Outback
VW Jetta TDI
I ended up buying an Acura TSX. Although it was among the most expensive vehicles I was considering, it met most of my criteria for what I was looking for. What really sold me was taking a test drive one day, and grinning as I rowed through the silky manual gearbox. I had never shifted such a buttery smooth transmission before, and I was sure to get much better than EPA fuel economy from the 4-cylinder engine.
Create a spreadsheet
What I suggest you do whenever confronted with a dilemma is to create a spreadsheet. Along the top row, list the options you are considering. On the left column, list the aspects you desire of whatever you are considering.
Create a value range for each aspect in proportion to how much you value it. For example, you might really value appearance. Give that a value range of 0-30. Maybe you don't care much about interior volume, so you might give that a range of 0-10.
Then, for each car, assign a value within the assigned range for how well it accomplishes that goal. Perhaps you find the Corvette is a 26 out of 30 for appearance, but a 3 out of 10 for interior volume.
At the end, you simply add up the column values for each vehicle, and the totals inform your decision. Rather than second guessing your options endlessly, you can find some confidence that you applied a rational method to your decision.
I did this when deciding whether to keep my current job with a substantial pay raise, or to accept another job that paid less, but had other desirable aspects. It could even work when deciding between who to date, or even if you should date someone.
