well everyone has his/her own taste so it makes no sense in forcing ur opnion onto others we just need toput down the real stats and thats it and let the topic poster decide himself.
now as for the resale point the 2005 onwards altis's resale is poor and this is no false info. u guyz also abt it , gli and xli has gud resale but altis no way, civic on the other hand has started to gain attention with buyers who are looking for used civics, the 2004 onwards model on of the civic has got gud reale value now. Now the maintenace costswud be the same as both are 1.8l and parts are more or less the same.
Civic's drive is thousand times more pleasurable than altis's and now this is not just me saying coz i own a civic but bcoz i have first hand experience of both the car's drive. i have even heard ppl sitting in a bank and saying that corolla's drive has no match wid civic's and that guy was by th looks lookd really paindo(uneducated type guy).
and yeah auto transmission is worth spending more as the new civics do not give a jhaatka when the gear changes plus it's a very usefull feature in a country like pakistan where on every road there is traffic jam now i hope all this i have mentioned also helps in u making the right decision.
and more thing when ur like spending arnd 18lacs for a car then spending like 70-80000 more for sunroof isn't a bad decision, sunroof adds to the looks of the car and plus the interior also feels more luxurious.
mark Xs are b/w 24-28 lacs. and abt the accord , the car has already live most of it's live so don't expect it to be a problem free car it will start to give u problems and hes already too much concerned abt the resale, parts and maintenance so makx, accords, mark2 is not a gud option for him.
bdw wud anyone explain me why i see so many corollas for sale just after the owner brought it some time back, there are so many threads in which members are selling their brandnew corollas whereas on the other hand u see less civics up for sale, why is that?