My wife has a Cee'd 1.4 petrol. We've had it for a year now and it's truly a lovely little car. It soaks up the bumps better than many more expensive cars we've had. The seats are superb, visibility is excellent and the steering well weighted (if a little light). The aircon system is excellent too. Boot space is at least the equal of a Golf, Ibiza, Astra, Grande Punto (all of which we looked at). It's cheap to service and not too hard on the juice. We also like the 7 year warranty
On the minus side, if we had to buy it again in the morning we'd definitely go for the diesel. She only uses it around the city but on the open road I find it has to be worked hard. We'd also have liked to have bought the Pro Cee'd but it wasn't launched at the time plus we have a baby so the extra doors are a must for us. The 'throw' on the gear lever is a little long for my liking and the plastics on the dash are a bit cheap. All that aside, though, we only paid 12,500 Euro including the VAT so it was cheap as chips for what it is. We don't live in Ireland before anyone queries the price.
I'd have no idea what it's resale value will be when we're finished with it in a few years time but it definitely is a very fine car for the money.