That's a long time to be sitting without being started. Drain the fuel tank and put fresh fuel in it, and check that you're getting spark at the spark plug.

IT COULD be a design fault, but failures such as this usually are caused by a vibration that results in a fatigue failure of the component. The first failure occurred after five years, the second after only a few months, which suggests something other than a basic design flaw is the root of the problem. Have the compressor checked to make sure it's working the way it's meant to, check the compressor mounts for looseness or cracking, and the belt for correct tension.

Reliability and resale should be the key factors in your decision, given you're doing about 30,000km a year. That's considerably more than the average, and in three years you'd be clocking up close to 100,000km. With that in mind I suggest you go for a Japanese brand with a reputation for quality and reliability. That way you are more likely to have a trouble-free run and have a car that will be highly valued on the used-car market when you come to sell it. The Lanos and Accent are both built in Korea by companies whose credo was cheap, cheap, cheap. While the reliability of their products wasn't necessarily poor, their cars weren't built as well as their more expensive Japanese-made rivals. The Korean makes don't hold their values as well as the cars from Toyota, Mazda, Honda and Nissan. I'd consider a Nissan Pulsar, a Mazda 121, Honda Civic or Toyota Corolla, all of which are good, robust cars with good resale potential.