I can’t believe it’s come to this. Do I need a…a…soccer-mom-mobile? Yikes.
I need a larger second vehicle. One that will fit at least one large crate (42x36x36), a Rottweiler or two and various dog and human paraphernalia.
Is reliable. Or, at least, will last me through a two, maybe three year car loan.
Gets halfway decent gas mileage.
Won’t be too expensive to insure.
I really don’t want to spend more than $8,000.
I’m starting to go to dog shows frequently; my current vehicles just don’t work, plus both have high miles and I hate driving several hundred miles for a weekend in a truck with 180K, or trying to squish everything into an old Saab.
I really need AC in the rear part of the vehicle, for the doggies.
There has to be ample room on the tailgate for bumperstickers like “Run Naked” and “My Rottweiler is Smarter Than Your Honor Student.”
The biggest catch - I’m currently living in SE Michigan, where foreign vehicles are about as rare as hens’ teeth. There just isn’t that much of a selection
Realistically, I’m looking at buying domestic. Having had absolutely bullet-proof, incredibly long lived and inexpensive-to-maintain Japanese vehicles for years; and watching how much maintenance all my friends’ domestic autos require, I hate to go domestic, but I may be stuck.
Something as small as a Focus wagon might work, and they’re not bad vehicles.
I really like Jeep Cherokees, the classic ones, not the Grand Cherokees which are horribly unreliable.
But 4WD is pricier to buy and insure; 8 grand won’t get me much under 100K on the odometer. Plus, since I don’t do much offroading, I don’t need one.
Minivans are looking like the best bang for my buck. :eek: I can get, say, a newish Dodge Caravan with about 50K for $7,000-$8,000.
OK, so which domestic minivans are not pieces of crap?
I loved my Dodge Caravan. I bought it brand new in '98, and never had a day’s trouble with it. When Dad died, I inherited his van, a 2000 Chevy Venture. Since it was newer, and the extended length, I kept it and sold my Caravan.
I know at one point Caravans were dropping transmissions every 20,000 miles…but I’ve driven one and they’re nice. Maybe they fixed the transmission issues.
Hmmm.
Anyone else got any minivan feedback? I’m leaning in that direction, doG help me.
Hubby and I have occasion every now and then to rent a van for a long trip (we’re a family of six - the youngest is 16). I’ve found the Caravan to be a better handling highway vechicle than the other GM brands - the Chevy and Pontiac felt unstable to me. Also, in a former life I owned a Caravan and was satisfied with it - I don’t think we ever had any trouble out of it, although we only had it a couple of years. My former sister-in-law kept one for 10 years and was also happy with hers.
The '91 Dodge Grand Caravan I gave my daughter a year ago needed a transmission overhaul and computer upgrade in 2000. The transmission hasn’t given any trouble since.
Don’t run one out of gas even once. A co-worker whose brother was a Chrysler mechanic told me that the in-tank fuel pumps on Chryslers have a pleated-paper filter instead of a metal-mesh screen on their intakes. These collapse if you draw a vacuum on the tank. The pump, which is cooled and lubricated by the flow of gas through it fails when it can’t draw properly through the collapsed intake.
Don’t know how many times I told Daughter this, but she recently ran the tank dry and needed a new pump at $250 for the part and $125 labor.
I know it’s ugly to some, but the Pontiac Aztek has a surprising amount of room for its size. Ours gets 20- to-22 mpg in town and on vacation last year got a high of 29.3 and an overall average of 25.7 mpg.
