Cheap New Car?

Just came thought a period where I thought we might have to get a car to replace AJ's... It would not start unless jumped, and even then, when jumped, would not start if shut off and left for a few minutes.... I thought it might be the alternator, but turned out is was a bad battery. Had it replaced and it seems like it's okay now, which is good. He needs it to get back and forth to work.

So the tentative plan was to either 1) get a cheap lease on something for AJ, like around $100 a month, for 3 years or so, and then turn the car over to him when the lease expired or 2) give AJ my car and get something for me. I was leaning towards #1, simply because I wasn't sure how reliable my car would be and I didn't think I wanted to downgrade my car into something I could get for #1 above...

But the process got me thinking about some of the great cars available that you could presumably get for around $20k and certainly for under $25k - Ford Fiesta and Focus, Mazda2, Mazda3, various Hyundai/Kias, a pretty basic MINI, Jetta, Honda Fit, etc.... They are all good cars, with plenty of features, and in the case of the Fords and Mazda2, cool cars. Of these cars, I would have considered a MINI, Focus or Jetta if I had had to go with option 2 above. They are all neat cars and newly designed or redesigned, and can be had for about $25k very nicely equipped (top of the line, in the case of the Focus). Oh, and all are available with a manual transmission....