I'm in a huge pickle. Help please!

Hi, i'm totally new to this forum and joined for the sake of posting this thread. Nissan Versa/Hyundai Accent information requested, so if you know nothing of these cars you probably won't want to keep reading unless you're a nice, helpful person with some spare time :grinno:

Basically, i'm going to college for my sophomore year in two weeks, and i've been on the search for a car since my old car (92' volvo wagon) has since shown signs of not being able to make both my 7+ hour trips to school and back and my 20 minute commute to school every day. This was an exciting prospect for me since i'd be able to (somewhat) pick out a car of my own for once that i'd not have as a hand me down from my family.

The last month i've been looking for bargains on used cars because my budget for finding a car is pretty strict. I've got about 4,000 to spend, total, on a used car. This isn't the bad part, however.

After spending a few weeks looking at used cars that really appealed to me (98 Maxima SE, 03 Galant, 98 Civic), my dad called me on the phone and said my mom's truck has started to die, and that since it applies for Cash for Clunkers, she offered to donate it to the program for a $4500 credit towards a NEW car for me. (AWESOME, right?!) ...maybe.

Now, the issue raised here, is that my budget of 4k plus the 4500 credit from cash for clunkers makes a grand total of 9500 bucks. This price range for new cars includes one Nissan Versa sedan, and MAYBE a Hyundai Accent. My parents don't have a lot of money, so they cannot contribute much more towards my budget, which is the extremely annoying part for me.

These would be my sole choices if I were to get a new car. I don't know how I feel about these cars. I went to a dealership yesterday to look at the Versa, and then the Accent afterwards (dealership had sold out of manual accent hatchbacks - imo the most appealing of the models) and I was really not impressed. The car is extremely compact, looks odd, and if I were to get it - would be the car I would drive for years to come. Do I want to be driving the cheapest possible new car of 2009 for the next 5+ years of my life? Not especially.

I need reasons to refute getting these cars. I'm pretty sure both these models don't offer power locks, windows, or ABS. This is a pretty big deal to me, as my supposed "new" car will feel like a '99 Neon. Ontop of that, the horsepower clocks in at a whopping 110 HP. Woo.

Anyway - i'm really stuck. I have a week and a half to get to school and I don't have a car. If I can miraculously find a huge bargain on a used car in that time, i'd be set. But at this point - it's the cheapest new car of 09.

If anyone can give me reasons to try to convince my parentals to extend my budget, incredddddddibbbbbllyyyy convincing reasons, I would be forever grateful. I'm hoping to somehow sway my parents into letting me get at least an 09' Civic or a Yaris Sedan due to superior quality and reliability. But basically I just need reasons to tell them why getting me an Accent or Versa wouldn't be a golden opportunity for me, because they're completely under the impression that it is.

I would drive the worst Hyundai before I ever bought a new Nissan. I recommend Hyundai's all the time to customers looking for the types of vehicles they offer. The ones that have bought them have no complaints.