OKay I have delivery_tb

Delivery ID - Int(6) - Primary Key - Auto Increment
UserID - Int(6)
CarID - Int(6)
ManufacturerID - Int(6)
Date - Timestamp
Delivered - Enum(0,1)

I need to to select a maximum of 20 rows per Unique ManufacturerID...
I need to also select a maximum of 5 rows per Unique UserID per Unique ManufacturerID...

So that no user can get more than 5 cars delivered per manufacturer per month...

I'm using PHP5 as well...

the group by & having clauses would be worth a look
also the "top" sub clause eg "select top n from"

dependiogn on what version of MySQL you are using you could enforce the no more than 5 cars a month rule using a teble level constraint

does the coursework have to a PHP solution, a MySQL solution or a combined / overall solution?

If I can get this to be an all-in-one query (i.e. not having to loop through PHP and perform multiple queries) then that is the ideal solution...

I'll have a look through what you have suggested...