Hi there,
Just to give you an idea how good these cars are, I resently bought my wife a BMW 118dSE, fantastic I hear you say. No is the answer, she drove it once and went back to our IS 200 LE, I am now driving around in a bloody 118. To cap it all off the BM is 4 months old and has been back to the dealer 3 times for faults, The IS just keeps going. Yes it can be a little juicy, but if you get the chance to drive one turn the stereo off and listen, no creaks, no annoying clicks just a lovely 6 cylinder engine purr. The IS really is a quality car. The dealers (whilst very good) do tend to charge a helluva lot for servicing though. I live in Germany and use my local Toyota dealer who is very good.
Hope this helps, remember, dont buy a bloody 1 Series, they are rubbish.