There must be a big variety of models in Chrysler’s line of vans. My back seat does not stow. The back folds to meet the seat-top and it can be manhandled from the floor. It’s mentioned in the manual that the seats may fold and stow into the floor boards and if so the spare is someplace odd, under the driver’s seating area. Mine is not this model it seems.
The only bin I have is under the front passenger seat. The middle bench has a bracket that I thought was for some sort of (missing) fold-out cup-holder thing (suggested but not pictured in the manual) but it looks like the same dimensions as the front-seat bin holder, too.
I used to drive a Ford Explorer, a lifetime ago, and it always surprised me how little cargo space there was in it. That high rear deck really consumed the cubic feet. A mini-van with the seats removed is huuuge. The manual suggests I could lay plywood on top of the folded bench seats. Haven’t tried that yet, of course.
The turn-signal problem is clearly a mechanical problem with the ratchet thing that release the handle back to the center. I don’t think its the electrical problem described by eleanorigby.
I forgot to warn you. Check your tire sizes. Mine are an oddball size and I can’t find them for any cheaper than $100 a tire. The time to find that out is NOT when you are flat-ass broke and desperately need a tire, ONE tire.
I think that anyone who drives a non-compact car has a pair. I would barely want to drive a station wagon let alone a minivan considering how little room there is on each side on the highway.
Heck, the Dodge Neon was almost too wide for me.
So at least pat yourself on the back that you will still have a driving challenge.
ETA: and they told me the Neon was a girly car. And so is the Mustang, I guess, but it felt like it still had a solid grip on the road at 120 mph.
I had a '98 Grand Caravan for a while. I never felt it had any effect on my masculinity. My fiancee (whom I first met after I got the Caravan) said she never thought anything of it, she claims a more flashy/macho car would have been a negative.
However I’m sorry to say it’s been the most unreliable vehicle I’ve ever had. I have the turn signal issue as well. And I’ve had endless trouble with squeaking belts - they’ve replaced the belt once, the belt tensioner twice, fixed a leaky gasket near the belt, and the darn thing still squeaks. I got an '83 Mercedes 240D later (I have both right now) and this 25-year old car is proving to be more reliable, and gets 50% better gas mileage.
I had a coworker who swore he would never buy a minivan. Never, ever, no way, no how, not gonna happen, forget it!
His wife got pregnant. That’s ok, one kid, don’t need a minivan. They traded in their car (I forget what it was) and got something a bit bigger, to more easily fit the car seat through the back door, but that’s ok. It wasn’t a minivan.
His wife got pregnant again, about a year later.
No problem! Two car seats fit in the back of this still-new car! That was part of the reason they bought it, so the family could grow! All is good!
Wait?.. What?.. TWINS!!!
Yep. He bought a minivan!
He was devastated. To make it worse (at least, in my opinion) is that he bought the same boring, vomit-brown Odyssey half the employees at that company had! It was weird, there was a whole segment of the parking lot with nearly identical cars. He couldn’t have found a blue one or something?
You know, once you get to 5 butts sitting at once, the options fall-off rapidly. Three across seating on a back seat only works these days for children on all but the largest vehicles.
I told the salesman I was looking for three rows of seats, cruise, air, and a radio. That was my shopping list. Pretty much what I got.
Bollocks. The tame, vanilla, beige, blameless, milquetoast, pro-family movement is alive and well here in the good ol’ USA, my friend.
The great heaping mounds of tawdry, plastic, sweatshop-made crap that litters both suburban lawns and landfills is concrete evidence of that fact.
As far as the OP, well, getting a minivan would lead to the death of my soul.
I, however, neither have nor want kids, nor am I ‘anti’ kids, though I do think with the constant barrage of meaningless crap we subject them to, we’re busily ruining the next generation.
Sorry you had to get a minivan, dude, but glad you did.
Oops, I meant my baby is my car. I be the quilter.
I have to treat my “baby” Civic well–he just got valued at $500 and I need him to bounce back from that indignity and carry me 70,000 more miles at least.
The very fact that someone can in all seriousness describe ‘pro-family’ activities as ‘tame, vanilla, beige, blameless, milquetoast’ is part of the problem. The implication that one loses one’s personal power, one’s individuality, one’s attractiveness, the colour and music in one’s life, by participating in family-related activities, is part of the problem. That negative portrayal of family activities is part of the problem.
Family–the art of raising and supporting sane and healthy people–is the most important thing we can do as a society. All else is suppoort and infrastructure.
And yes, recreation is part of that support. There need to be adult places for the adults in the world as well as children’s places for the children; in no way do I believe that the entire world should be Made Safe For Children.
