looking at used minivans for the wife, anyone have experiences with these vintages?
thanks!
don’t do it man
The only thing I have that might help is the new Dodge mini vans have super nice interiors.
look into siennas and odyssey’s… stay away from town and countries
personally i think the sienna is the best of the bunch
Sienna > Odyssey > anything else
You’re just asking for it when buying a Dodge van.
ewwww chrysler product
being cool or hip isn’t real high on my priority scale - i drive a 3.0L 2wd 5-speed reg-cab ranger w/ over 100K on the clock
& we have a '04 Malibu Maxx and its perfect for 1 kid, i need another car/van that will handle my growing family.
i really dislike the front of the sienna & all the ones i’ve found with leather (her one demand) have the AWD, that i don’t need/want and are $$$
the T&C vans have all sorts of bells & toys, but i really don’t need that crap either.
this forum is a little young for this thread, but i figured i would give it a shot.
would you rather reliability, and hold value or would you rather looks for a vehicle that you only want for a specific purpose?
sienna le and have a place put leather in it for around 1800???
or just search for sienna xle if you want factory leather
Odyssey all day…brother-in-law has one, it drives like a car, it’s awesome.
This^^^^^^^^
But watch out for the touring edition on the odyssey. They come with run flats and the rims ( I HEARD ) are specail rims for a special run flat tire. You can NOT put NON-run flats on these rims due to the inside lip…or something like that. Luckly my brother-in-laws odyssey had the EX rim on it and some TPS sensor by-pass. I guess the owner before him ran into this problem and insted of buying a set of special run flats for $1000ish, he bought EX rims and tires.
I didnt look too muchinto this but this info comes from my brother-in-law and a tech at a Honda dealership.
I love the touring model but I would have to swap out the rims.
Someday I might just have to do this
http://beangarage.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/noblesseRB1odyssey.jpg
Hah
People, people, people, I’m just as skeptical about Chrysler reliability as the next guy, but have you forgotten that Chrysler has made vans for like 30 years?
Also, at least they look good. Those Odysseys and Siennas are some of the ugliest fucking piles I’ve ever seen.
but none of them last 30 years because they rott out so fast. They are good products if you don’t live in the rust belt.
They stopped doing the runflats on the odyssey after the first year or 2 of the new version because of the extra cost. If I remember right the 19" rims on the 06-07’ were the ones that had the runflats. If I were ever to get a van it would be an Odyssey, when I worked at the Honda dealership I drove plently of Seinnas, odysseys and a few T&C. The Odyssey was the nicest out of all of them, imo.
Lol I don’t have evidence for or against that. But hey, living in the rust belt will destroy just about any car.
I honestly think that Buffalo/Rochester/Syracuse might be the worst area in the country with the amount of salt we use.
thats the PAX tire system and i know to avoid at all costs. it was only on the tourings
Although not specifically related to the models you are looking for, they are probably close enough to make comparisons.
We had a 2005 Dodge caravan purchased 1 or 2 years old for like 23k. We traded it in a few months ago for 4000$ i think . Nothin like having good resale eh?
As far as maintaining it. Out of the years we had it, all we had to do was replace tires once. Brakes, tranny flush etc. Transmission starting sucking around 80k. Starting rust bubbling on the hood and underneath both sliding doors. OH. the window regulator went out twice. There is tons of room in it, we had a base model grand caravan with 2 captains chairs in the back and a bench. Not a lot of room for storage/luggage with the 3rd seat in use behind it. handled like shit. felt like shit driving. but overall a DECENT van.
What we traded it in for was a 2011 sienna. i think it is a LE. The problem with this, is that it only comes with light grey interior and the only way you can get black is to go up to the next model and add a package which is like 3k more or some gay shit. But they include a lifetime cleaning thing for spots otherwise they have to replace the interior lol.
it is actually suprisingly very nice to drive, it handles well. you dont feel like you’re going to flip over at 45mph on an offramp lol. The auto sliding doors are super siq, as well as everything else.
the rear seats (captains and 3rd bench again) fold up nicely and provide a lot of room if you need to haul something.
there is a lot of room behind the bench to carry things like groceries and luggage too, plus its below bumper level so it adds an extra 6-8" or so of depth.
i think minivans are gay as fuck but the sienna is pretty “cool” for a minivan.
it was between this and a new traverse, the traverse sucks. and this actually gets good gas mileage too. and i accidently did a burnout once lol, so its got a little bit of power too.
the newest sienna’s are pretty damn nice, i delivered one to a customer 3 hours away and averaged 26mpg which i thought was more than impressive
and Eric said it best… resale value, and 05 sienna is worth atleast twice the grand caravan
took a 2008 Odyssey home for the wife to check out & will be haggling w/ the salemen tonight. so we’ll see how bad he wants to move it off the lot.
the toyotas do seem really nice, but as i said, Leather is a must & i can only find XLE w/ AWD, something i don’t want to deal with or pay for.
i also find the front end of the hondas to be more visually appealing to me
debbo, i read alot about premature front tire wear, only 15-20K, any issues with yours?
i think i was reading about '08s when i saw alot of complaints about that-
Yeah, I mean if for no other reason, the resale argument alone makes the T&C an awful choice…
bag o’ milk: 2008 Honda Odyssey EX-L (Baltic Blue Pearl)