You could also get a certified-used car from Honda (I dunno if Toyota does it too). I bought my '99 Civic LX like that with 30,500 miles on it, it ran great and looked new. That was in Spring of '02, and so far I’ve had to do brakes twice, one bearing, and 2 exhausts. Or was it 3? Oh yeah, and it’s got 168,500+ miles on it, and still gets 40+ mpg in the summer.
Don’t remember who said it, but just because a new model comes out doesn’t mean the old one has problems. The Toyota Corrollas used the same engine with just a couple tweaks here and there for a good 15 years or so before they changed it, and during that time there were prolly about 4 different model changes. Car manufacturers routinely change the body’s every four years or so. My '92 Accord used the same engine as the '99 if I recall, and they were totally different models aesthetically… But in the details they were pretty much the same thing.