So, now I will violate that advise.

Here is a generic suggestion. Get something you want. Not need. Want. It sounds like you will be the only driver, so indulge your whims. Don’t be too practical. You already have enough time served in minivan hell to earn a get out of bland car jail free card.

If the car that you choose does not last forever, so what. Life is supposed to be an adventure. Take a tiny risk.

It will at least give you something to blog about.

Aside from that, any new or relatively recent used (<2 years old) car made by Honda, Toyota, Mazda, Subaru, or VW shouldn’t require any more trips to the shop. VWs tend to be a bit more expensive on the maintenance, but otherwise I’ve been happy with mine (9-year-old Passat).

Since your main criteria are how well the bike fits and how quiet the ride is, well, you bring your bike to the Honda, Toyota, Mazda, Subaru, VW, and Scion dealers and see how easy it is to get it in and out of the car you take for a test drive…

Did I mention that it’s quick? Yes, it is. It’s almost as fast as the GTI. It’s also not “diesely” Occasionally it lets you know its a diesel, by clattering in a mild way. But I’ve gotten some friends to ride in it who “knew all about diesels” meaning diesels before the Euros made them awesome, and they never realized they were riding in a diesel.

What else? It’s German – that means the seats will be good (not mushy) and it will drive very well on the highway and at speed. It doesn’t cost a ton. The leatherette is basically indistinguishable from VW’s real leather (I’ve had both). Resale for VW diesels is incredibly high, and you get a tax credit for buying it.

I love my TDI Sportwagen.

Edit: I guess it’s not really quite a full size SUV, but it’s still large.

So, 7 years ago (before I was married and had kids) I broke down and splurged on a Lexus RX300. It is AWD and very solidly built. Now, (7 years later), it is as solid as the day I drove it off the lot. I fully expect to get another 7 years out of it, at least. From an investment perspective, it is the best car purchase I’ve ever made (previous purchases were Hondas and a Toyota). Ditto on overall satisfaction.

The utility of the car is great. It is a hatchback and the rear seat is split and easily folds to create a large/flat space in the back. It gets around Pittsburgh just great in the winter. It is also a good highway car.

The quality of the car is great. No problems, only regular service.

The comfort is also great. The car was built on a car frame, but has high ground clearance. The ride is smooth and the handling is very good for my driving patterns.

Sorry to sound like a salesman–not my intent. Perhaps, if new is too much to pay these days, this is a car that might warrant a look in the used market. I don’t know what my next car will be, but, back to first principles, I am very satisfied with the style (car/hatchback/SUV blend) and will likely go this route again.

In general, though, the most rational choice for me, size-wise, is a four-door hatchback; when I drive myself, the commute is a hundred miles, roundtrip, and the Impreza wagon/hatch works pretty well: it’s not so huge that I feel like I’m toting around a bunch of wasted space, but with the seats down, it holds a useful amount of stuff. Plus if you drive it with a reasonable foot, you get nearly 30 mpg on the freeway — this is with AWD, but not the turbo engine. And with four doors you don’t have to apologize about taking passengers around when they’re needed. Two doors are for people who hate passengers. And kids.

Our family car is actually a Mazda5 — reasonable mileage (I suspect the new 5-speed auto they have in this year’s model is better), and the sliding doors are useful in real-world parking situations, where you thoughtfully don’t dent everyone else’s cars wrestling kids in and out of car seats. There is, theoretically, room for six (at least there’s seatbelts for that many) as long as no one brings any cargo.

Here in southern California there is no significant advantage to having AWD aside from theoretical day-dream trips to the mountains, and even in places it snows, stability control is probably more useful. That said, also consider the Suzuki SX4 if AWD is on your shopping list, and the Saturn Astra if it’s not — now that Ford has dropped the Focus hatch/wagon, there’s relatively few European-influenced 4-door hatches on the road in America.

Part of the reason cars aren’t getting smaller is the category people call “safety.” I put this in quotes because there are people who won’t drive any car smaller than a Bradley tank. There is some merit to this, of course, but I see it as just another arms race. But I think this is like asking “we have better technology now, so why aren’t cars cheaper?” We just keep raising the safety standards; I can’t imagine the Tata would be approved for sale in the US. I suspect that actual safety standards have a lot of implications on car size.