Used Car Buying Advice

[timothy2180]

Hey, this is my first post here so go easy on me haha.

I'm looking for advice on buying a new car. I want to do this as intelligently as possible. My naive focus so far is "get a Civic between 1995 and 2005 with less than 180k miles, and no salvage title". I am not dead-set on a Honda Civic; that is just the only car I expect to find between $1-4k used, between those years, that also has ~30mpg and is reliable. All I want is this:

Reliable(I want about 100k miles out of the car)
No serious damage
Working AC/heat
~30 MPG
Price $1-4k
No older than '94.
Cheap parts - certain foreign cars cost a fortune to replace simple items.
Aesthetically pleasing is a plus but not 100% necessary.

I live in Northern California. I am not asking anyone to search for cars for me. I just want to know if I have reasonable expectations, and if there are other brands of cars that are reliable with good gas mileage in the specifications I listed.

Oh and I can drive(and actually prefer) standard transmission. I also do my best to take very good care of cars.

Thanks.

[BullShifter]

Civic is a good way to go.