I like to plan ahead so knowing the lease was ending 6 months ago I started to look at my options. The company I work for no longer provide any kind of company car anymore unless it is a tool of trade and for that I'd need to travel more than 40k a year. So I started to look at my financial status from when the lease expires and it made no sence to lease my own car or even get a loan out for a new or second hand one, I had been saving for some time for a new kitchen for my house hence the 15k mentioned above, I'm now thinking holy crap OK I will have no savings left so the kitchen will have to wait ect ect, no problem I will just start saving again. So now I knew my absolute max budjet so I strated to look, all the fords I saw were either highly modified or had heaps of ks on them, parts on BMWs are too expensive, started looking at importing from Japan as I love a turbo charged engine and almost came close to getting a Galant VR4 until I had it inspected and found the clock had been turned back. So I started to look at other options here and considering I had to pay for petrol now a 4cyl would be the go. I thought what are there plenty of (cheap parts) with heaps of room for mods, cheap on fuel that look good. WRX yep and I don't even like them but had to bite the bullet because that was simply the smartest option. Started to look around for unmodified ones driven by mature ladies (not an easy to find combo). After a month and a bit of looking on car sales and looking at car yards and heaps of other private sales I found one just up the road owned and driven by a lady just about to turn 30 who's husband is a Subaru workshop supervisor, they've owned it for 4 years has just over 100k and has had the major service, they needed the money, got it inspected and the inspector said he had not seen one in this condition for years.