I'm going to sell the wife's 2007 Jeep soon and replace it with a car that very well could be the last car I buy. That's my intention anyway...it wont get a lot of miles as we will both be retired. So it has to be durable. I spent a ton of time over the last several years researching automobiles and talking to lots of mechanics. I have a real good idea what's out there these days. My Conclusion: Toyota (Lexus) and Honda (Acura) make the best automobiles. And more recently, you can add Mazda to that list. No one else really challenges them. Subaru is OK but they're almost all AWD. All Chrysler products are crap. Jeep is crap. BMW is crap. Mercedes is crap. The Korean cars are crap. All General Motors products are crap except for their larger trucks (1 ton on up). All Ford products are crap except for their truck line which is still pretty good. Volkswagen is crap. Pretty much lots of crappy automobiles out there if you're looking to keep one for a long time. The Japanese still dominate (though Nissan and Mitsubishi are crap).
Not remotely interested in electric, hybrid, turbo charged, or supercharged automobiles. Only interested in straight up internal combustion engines. Haven't settled on a 4 cyl or 6 cyl. Plusses and minuses for both. Don't want a CVT but haven't completely ruled out the recent Toyota and Honda CVTs that incorporate a "launch gear". Prefer a regular automatic tranny, perhaps an 8-speed. FWD. AWD completely out...totally unnecessary in the south and very expensive to repair plus if one tire gets wrecked you gotta replace all four...screw that!
I have yet to find a mechanic who didn't think Honda, Toyota, and Mazda were the best automobiles made...especially if they were built in Japan. If you got money to burn you can get their luxury versions (Lexus and Acura). Truthfully, it is getting harder to find the cars I'm interested in. So many are electric, hybrid, turbocharged, AWD, or CVT. But they're out here, just gotta look. Likely to get a 2-3 year old car with 20-40K miles.