Mini Vans???

[kaseys411]

I just started looking at mini vans. I need a bigger car. I have a ford taruas. Its fine it gets us from point a to point b. I will buy used I would like to spend less than 15,000. I perfer to get a new with least miles as possible. The chevy uplanders and Kia sodona run alot less for newer and less miles than the sienna, odessey, and quest run alot more. Does anyone know how carseat friendly the uplander is? Does anyone have an uplander? Thoughts in general on it? http://www.cars.com/go/search/detail...5&aff=national

I really like this one for year, price, and extras.

Whats your favorite mini van and why?

[Nightowl Jan]

Well, I do not own a min-van but my sister does. She own a 1996 Honda Odyssey. It has 6 seats. (not 7) it is technically not called mini-van but it basically IS one. It is a little shorter both in height and length than a normal min-van. I really like. It has over 200,000 miles on it and yes they bought it used and had to replace the transmission but otherwise it is fine. I almost bought one myself. Maybe someday. As far as vans go this is the one. A newer one would totally rock! Hondas are amazing and reliable.

[army_princess]

I like the caravan. the one where the seats can turn around and you can have the table thing in the middle....would be nice for long trips to stop and eat lunch.

We have a pontiac montana. We had to rush to get a van, ANY van(well any nice van) that one was the only one in my price range, in the colors I am willing to buy(nothing dark, to hot for dark colors)

we paid $13000 for it. had automatic sliding door, DVD player and a few other cool things. was the cheapest the place had to offer in mini vans, none of the others had a DVD player either. DS is loving the DVD player and has learned so much from his educational DVDs, PLUS it helps on the long trips.

[kaseys411]

I couldnt find a newer caravan in our price range locally. I will keep looking. I really like the sienna and odyssey best also. I wish I could find an odyssey.
I like this toyota
http://www.cars.com/go/search/detail...5&aff=national

[army_princess]

my only info on minivans.....find seats that fold down, taking them out is nice, but a PITA to store. Ours fold down but also come out. We only have 2 kids, but they have JUMBO sized car seats. so in a car we cant fit anyone else in. We were worried about bringing LO home in the car with DS in there and DH being so long neither kid can sit behind him....PLUS driving an hour to the airport to get my mom and having her here for a week trying to go places with us.... we got a van a few nights before she flew in.

Having the fold down seats is also nice to get food and other items, since minivans do not have much storage in the back. We are also able to get big items(DH got a bunk bed set and mattresses and saved $35 that they charge for delivery)

[Jessi621]

We have a Sienna. It's my first van and I've only had it for about 6months, but so far I love it. The only thing I wish it had different is that the capitains chairs don't fold down. It's not really a big deal, but it would be nice to have the option to fold all the seats down if we ever needed to.

[briggsy13]

we have an 03 ford windstar. We paid $16k back in 06. We paid too much then! My car had died and I needed something to replace it. I was driving my dad's van and needed to get something quickly, or so I thought. I've learned a lot since then. I have the dual power doors, which is very nice, but the one door has a problem with a sensor or something cause it pops back open all the time so I have to stand there and push it closed. The third row seat folds in half but does not fold flat. I really wish it did!!! When the seat is in I have like zero cargo space for stroller/ groceries, you name it. We also have 2nd row bucket seats, which I like. But we are going to have baby #3 in Oct and we are buying something new before then cause I don't want one all the way in the back by himself. Our van also has horrible traction and is terrible in any amount of mud, ice, snow. TERRIBLE!!!! I would look at ones that have all wheel drive!! We are looking at suburbans right now. Older ones with high mileage cause that will be all we can afford but it will give us lots of room for all the kids and lots of cargo space, plus the 4 wheel drive. We live out in the country and this winter we almost got stranded here without power and heat. If my dh hadn't come home a day early because of the storm we would have been. Just my experience with my minivan. It now has 109000 miles and we have only had routine maintenance on it. It had 30,000 when we bought it. Hope this helps.

[Dawndelion]

I have a Dodge Caravan with Stow 'n Go that we bought new last year that I LOVE!!! The Stow 'n Go is so handy because you can configure the seats in so many different ways to fit whatever you need. My sister has basically the same thing but the Chrysler Town & Country version that she bought used, and she loves it so much that when their first one was caught in a flood and totaled, they searched until they could find almost the same one to replace it.

[bezbabe]

when we bought our first sienna new in 06, my sil had loaned us an uplander from the dealership she worked at and we really really didn't like it (i hesitate to say hate because it WAS better than walking...lol). the middle row seats were really skinny and slanted. i honestly can't remember how they were for car seat installation (we would have had my 3 yo in her infant seat at the time) but i remember sitting on them and always feeling like i was going to fall off the side every time we turned a corner (i'm not that big either - 150ish post-partum maybe?). i don't remember how the back row was and when we sold our sienna recently for debt reduction purposes we just went and bought another older, cheaper, more km's sienna because we have found it's really the best for us. when ours was in the shop once, it was a major hassle to find a rental that would work for all our car seats because of my dayhome and everything; we have a car seat and 2 boosters across the back row and i could not do that in the caravan or the odyssey but was barely able to do it in the sedona. this was just in december so all new models. anyways, good luck!

[Chey]

I have a Montana, but an older one. I almost got a newer one...the Uplander style, but there just wasn't enough room in the middle row seats.

I ended up with the Montana kind of as a fluke, I sold my SUV 3 days before the baby was born and went a month with nothing. I shoe horned the kids into DH's pickup and that sucked big time. We had planned on going car shopping, I had a budget and my Dad had given me some money too. I had a list of things I wanted and a price range I wanted it in and I knew I could find it if I didn't rush into anything. I just so happened that about a month after the baby came I went to the local auction yard and saw the Montana. it was older than I wanted. I was looking 2005 or newer and this one was a 2002, but otherwise it had all of the options I NEEDED plus the ones I wanted. So DH went and bid on it and we got it for a song and dance.....$2300.00 and it needed some work. New windsheild, new tires, AC wasn't working, and a few other minor things. We have spent less than $1000 to get everything fixed, and nothing was something that needed to be done immediately, so we fixed the window right away, got winter tires in the fall, got summer tires in the spring, and just fixed the AC last week. I've put 30,000km on it since I got it in August and I LOVE it. Will be putting on another 5000+k the end of may beginning of june (10 days).

LOVE my van. Leather seats, power slide door, All Wheel Drive. I just love it.