@FartingInTheFence the video references data collected on vehicles over 9 years old but no mention of mileage. Most of the vehicles in the bottom of the table are typically used as company cars or used by people who do a lot of commuting and typically generating lots of mileage. I don’t think a Fiat 500 is generally doing the same mileage as VW Passat. So, I would hope that a 9 year old Fiat 500 with 80,000 miles on the clock would break down less than a 9 year VW Passat with 180,000 miles on the clock.
OP - we had the exact same criteria as you and we went for a Scoda Octavia estate. I’ve had a Ford Focus (and fiesta) and loved it. I really like Ford, they’re quite cheap to run, easy to maintain and you can take them to 90% of garages and they can be fixed. I thought the focus was a great size and a fantastic run around. I personally don’t like the style of the new focus, I think they look a bit weird and it massively puts me off. Surprisingly, considering it’s smaller than the Octavia Estate, the focus had a lot more blind spots than our Octavia. I would buy another (if they come out with a style I like).
Anecdotally - we have had 2x fords, 1x VW, 1x Kia and 1x Skoda. Based on all factors - how easy they were to repair, how frequent they broke down, how easy they were to drive, size. I would rank them as Skoda, fiesta (which was about 10 years old when I got it), focus, VW and then the Kia. We bought our Kia at 4 years old, sold it when it was 8 and it had electrical problems in both front windows pretty much throughout the time we owned it. These weren’t covered by Kia’s 7 year warranty - one of the main selling points for us getting that car. It was also a nightmare to get bodywork done on it. But ‘Japanese cars are superior’ 
I did like the dual climate control in the Kia though but our Skoda now has that!