Please help me Veeky Forums

Sort out your finances first

With a budget of $20k, I would strongly recommend against buying new.
It will have your margins very thin, and you would need to haggle down to the penny which most dealers won't put up with in normal circumstances.

$20k in the used market is recent gen entry-level luxury, or top of the line econobox with plenty of cash left over.
You said you like this generation of Civic. A used 2016 can be had for around $15k - Touring trim for around $20k.

If you don't absolutely need this generation of Civic, you can find good-quality 2015s for around $12k.

>Buy an STi
>If you're into performance cars
>and not a bogan

It's not dead. You can always fix it.

get the civic
if you take care of it the civic should easily last you 10 years without any major issues

>OP likes corolla
>thinks corolla is fun

Get the Toyota Corolla FRS.

$20k gets you a new subcompact or a a slightly used compact/midsized car - the latter is a better idea.

The Mazda3 and 6 (compact sedan/hatch and midsized sedan, respectively) are good all-rounders that are more fun to drive than average but a little loud on rough surfaces. They're reliable, economical, and have good interiors and infotainment systems.

The Civic and Accord give you a little more noise control and refinement at the expense of being a little less lively and not having as good an infotainment interface.

Then you've got boring and quiet: Toyota and Hyundai. I'm not a fan of the current Toyotas and would recommend the Elantra Sport as a better equivalent (it's called "Sport" but it's more comfortable than the base model and not very sporty).

Or you can go nicer but unreliable: The Ford Fusion is very nice, and for a compact the VW Golf is in the same category. They're nearly as nice as luxury brand cars.

Forgot to mention. The new (2018?) Subaru Impreza is excellent. Sedan only; I think the hatch is still the old model, which wasn't great.

You can get a 2017 Camry SE for 17,500 before tax and tags.

It'll prly be cheaper than a Corolla. This is because 1) mid-size sedans are selling poorly due to Amerka's SUV/CUV obsession, 2) Camry is selling especially poorly, 3) the 2017 Corollas have auto-safety braking/lane-departure shit, standard LED headlights, etc. and the Camry actually doesn't. It's weird, their lower-end product has some more features than the mid-range product.

Yeah, blowing head gaskets at least once a month, too.