Used Cars: buying a used car, mechanic shops, scion tc

Question
Hey,

I hope I'm not being mean or anything.. but I NEED HELP!

I'm turning 16 soon, I live in the Tampa area. I really want a car, like you have no idea how much better my life will be once I get one. I'm looking at several cars, but I really want to get a nice certified pre owned car, and I know that is going to be hard to find for under.. $10,000.

Info:
Car type: Volvo s40 (I like the smaller ones with the shaped trunk), Audi A4/A6 (hopefully between 2001-2005)
*Certified Pre-Owned WITH a warrenty
Price Range: lowest to $15,000
Color: any =]


And any other information would be greatly appreciated and thank you so much.

Answer
The audi is a good car.. the volvo is alright... both cars are a poor choice if you are on any sort of a budget - both aren't super reliable and will cost a lot to fix when things do break.. check honda dealerships for certified prelude's, civics, accords... may even look into a used scion tC or any of toyota's models (corolla, camry, mr2, cellica) - they will be cheaper in the long run, and cheaper to buy.. but if money isn't a huge deal a nice A4/A6 is a good choice, i personally am not a huge fan of volvo's but it wouldn't be terrible.  It will be harder to find one of either with lower miles for cheap... you will have better luck with the japanese imports - but i had found a used S4 (twin turbo A4) with 70k for 12,999 - so it might be possible to find an A4 with ~50k for 10 grand or so... you just have to look around... you might want to call the local volvo/audi mechanic shops around and ask about average repair costs.... they can be pretty steep... you didn't really have a specific question in your letter so I just assumed you wanted my opinions on the cars... if you want to find some locally with the warranty you can always use autotrader.com, cars.com, oodle.com, and yahoo auto's - i'm pretty sure autotrader has "certified pre-owned" as a search criteria.  Anyways, if you have any other questions just ask, but be sure to check out some of the other models I mentioned... never hurts to look.  Good luck!