Vans (minivans, MPVs, cargo, passenger, crew, sprinter, transit, etc.)

[Doc_Glock]

We’ve got car and truck threads, but I didn’t see a van thread (other than my own campervan thread). There’s even an SUVish thread.

I’ve been somewhat passively shopping Ford Transits and MB Sprinters for awhile now, even before we bought our campervan over a year ago.

With ease of the new Kia Carnival (horrid name) it’s also got me curious about the Chrysler Pacifica as well. I don’t, personally, find much appealing about the current Gen Honda Odyssey or Toyota Sienna, but those would also be covered here.

For the rest of you midlife dad olds like me, I thought it’d be “fun” to at least commiserate re: vans.

What you have, what you like, what you hate, what your wife drives, etc.

Some 13 yo kids obsess over baseball. My 13 yo obsesses over vans and minivans. Yesterday for his birthday he asked that we go test drive the big three.

Honda dealer: lot nearly empty. No new vans available due to current car shortages. Drove a 2020 Odyssey with 20k miles. It was a great typical Honda driving experience. Great handling, great brakes, wonderful engine, exceptional steering. Moderately quiet. I currently have a 2006 Odyssey with 275k miles and it felt like home. Didn’t care for push buttons but I could get used to it for transmission. It ended up being my favorite.

Toyota dealer: again lot empty but they scratched up a 2021 hybrid Sienna. It was okay. Didn’t care for dash. Exceptionally quiet and generally a nice all around driving appliance. Much less fun than the Odyssey. Felt like a Japanese Pacifica. Didn’t like 4 cylinder drone.

Kia Dealer: lot empty. Zero chance to try Carnival which is a bummer for the kid.

Prior experiences:

Multiple Chevrolet Express short wheelbase vans for the family. They are crude and rough but they haul people and tow excellently. A big ass traditional van for van stuff. If you tow get the 6.2 and enjoy. It’s an amazing package for that. If not, the 5.3 is reliable and great on gas.

Rented Ford Transit for a cross country trip with standard non turbo V6. It impressed the entire family and since we don’t tow often would be our choice if we were buying again.

Rented Chrysler Pacifica/New Plymouth both FWD and AWD version twins on various family trips. The Pacifica is top of the minivans for doo dads and luxury. Performance was fine but not Honda sharp. Great for daily driving and especially highway trips, but it kind of feels like a big old boat that doesn’t want to turn but will if you ask it to. Probably the best interior. I would never buy one because I don’t trust American cars to last and all those luxury doo dads will break. Buy new and ditch it at the end of warranty IMO.


Overall I love vans and think almost anyone who has a SUV would be better served with a van. I find nothing at all to comisserate about driving one. We have a 2018 Highlander (wife liked it so it’s for her) but an Odyssey would have been a better choice in almost every way.

For me:

Daily Driver: Odyssey all the way.
Bigger Family Hauler: Transit.
Big family hauler plus towing: Express 6.2l

[rob_s]

Chrysler has responded by rebranding the non hybrid version the Voyager.

I don’t believe that’s accurate. 2021 Pacificas are V6 AFAIK

[0ddl0t]

I don’t believe that’s accurate. 2021 Pacificas are V6 AFAIK

Doh, you're right. Only the lower trim level Pacifica's became Voyagers

[vcdgrips]

Owned an 05 Honda. Great car right up until the tranny started getting hinky at 176k.
Drove the kids, their friends and gear all over the metro.

Drive 3 other 6 footers and all of our gear to multiple tac classes with ease.

Drove six boys and my gear to a bunch of camp outs.

Handled like a larger Accord.

If I was buying today, I would look hard at a Toyota Sienna for the AWD.

I have rented both the the Pacifica and the old school caravan in the last two years. Neither were superior to my 05 Honda with the exception of the nav/cell phone integration.

[AKDoug]

One thing Chrysler seems to do right is mini-vans other than the Pacifica Hybrid. The V6 versions are solid. We're on our third Chysler van and all of them have gone 100K+ miles without any major trips to the shop. Our old '08 is sill in the hands of our daughter and will make it's second trip back up the Alcan Highway from Washington to Alaska.. it will pass 200K miles on the trip north. The absolute biggest reason my wife continues to buy mini-vans, even though we have no kids at home, is the stow-and-go seats. I don't even recall if she's had those seats back up this summer, but when it comes time to run to the airport and grab six people it only takes a minute to convert.

76 landscaping shrubs in her van. She did this four times this summer for our retail greenhouse. BTW, when the seats are up you can hide thousands of rounds of ammo and several SBR's in the wells where the seats fold into

[Eugene]

We made the minivan mistake, the popular Dodge/Plemon/Chrysler one. Couldn't carry anything without removing seats so you have to leave your kids somewhere or make two trips. AWD sucked since it was a front wheel drive platform, if your front wheels lost traction to the point the rear were needed then you also lost steering. Then when slowly backing out of a parking space I hit something with a loud bang that shook the whole van. Got out and there was nothing there. Occasionally it would do it again and I researched and found out its the overrunning clutches in the AWD system binding up when it was supposed to switch from forward to reverse. Problem was it was a sealed unit, no fluid drain or refill plugs, no spare parts, etc, it was an Audi sourced unit that you have to replace as a whole so we just had to live with it. Their smart auto transmission would decide to override the gear selector and shift back into OD if you had selected D for a long downhill road. We would get into Kingwood WV and have to stand both feet on the brake pedel to stop and I had to replace the brakes and rotors every fall since we made most of our trips to the family farm during the summer.
It was a 3.3L V6 and with the AWD got slightly better highway but worse city mpg than my v8 4x4 Silverado, average mpg came out about equal but the truck I can carry 6 people plus a load in the bed where the minivan was either people or cargo.

[AKDoug]

We made the minivan mistake, the popular Dodge/Plemon/Chrysler one. Couldn't carry anything without removing seats so you have to leave your kids somewhere or make two trips. AWD sucked since it was a front wheel drive platform, if your front wheels lost traction to the point the rear were needed then you also lost steering. Then when slowly backing out of a parking space I hit something with a loud bang that shook the whole van. Got out and there was nothing there. Occasionally it would do it again and I researched and found out its the overrunning clutches in the AWD system binding up when it was supposed to switch from forward to reverse. Problem was it was a sealed unit, no fluid drain or refill plugs, no spare parts, etc, it was an Audi sourced unit that you have to replace as a whole so we just had to live with it. Their smart auto transmission would decide to override the gear selector and shift back into OD if you had selected D for a long downhill road. We would get into Kingwood WV and have to stand both feet on the brake pedel to stop and I had to replace the brakes and rotors every fall since we made most of our trips to the family farm during the summer.
It was a 3.3L V6 and with the AWD got slightly better highway but worse city mpg than my v8 4x4 Silverado, average mpg came out about equal but the truck I can carry 6 people plus a load in the bed where the minivan was either people or cargo.

Even though we live in Alaska, we've always run the FWD versions. The reason being is that you lose the stow-and-go seats going to AWD. AWD sucks for mileage as well as you found out. Fuel mileage on ours run in the low to mid 20's.

[DMF13]

Minivans are not cool, but I don't care, as they are tool for transporting, people, pets, and things, and they do that very well, at good price.

So I like having a minivan. In fact I had to talk my wife into getting one.

We have a Sienna, and you can comfortably put six adults in it, and if it's not a long trip 7, yet still have useful cargo space behind the third row of seats.

It's much easier to use all three rows of seats than any SUV, and it's much easier for people small in stature, or with physical limitations, to get in and out of than SUVs. If you need to haul a lot of crap, you can easily fold down, or remove, all the 2nd and 3rd row seats. Mine doesn't have the fold down 2nd row seats, but they come out pretty easy.

Even when I was single I was a fan of Minivans. I figured any girl who wasn't interested in me because my car wasn't "cool," wasn't worth my time.

[4RNR]

We made the minivan mistake, the popular Dodge/Plemon/Chrysler one. Couldn't carry anything without removing seats so you have to leave your kids somewhere or make two trips. AWD sucked since it was a front wheel drive platform, if your front wheels lost traction to the point the rear were needed then you also lost steering. Then when slowly backing out of a parking space I hit something with a loud bang that shook the whole van. Got out and there was nothing there. Occasionally it would do it again and I researched and found out its the overrunning clutches in the AWD system binding up when it was supposed to switch from forward to reverse. Problem was it was a sealed unit, no fluid drain or refill plugs, no spare parts, etc, it was an Audi sourced unit that you have to replace as a whole so we just had to live with it. Their smart auto transmission would decide to override the gear selector and shift back into OD if you had selected D for a long downhill road. We would get into Kingwood WV and have to stand both feet on the brake pedel to stop and I had to replace the brakes and rotors every fall since we made most of our trips to the family farm during the summer.
It was a 3.3L V6 and with the AWD got slightly better highway but worse city mpg than my v8 4x4 Silverado, average mpg came out about equal but the truck I can carry 6 people plus a load in the bed where the minivan was either people or cargo.

My experience with AWD has been in the 06 RAV4 and 03 GX470. The RAV4 is a front wheel drive system but I never felt that I was loosing steering and there were a few times I had to plow through a ton of snow at an intersection turn (where they never plow it seems).

The GX couldn't tell the difference between 4ft of snow or mid July. It just drove.

Sent from my moto z4 using Tapatalk

[Eugene]

If you need to haul a lot of crap, you can easily fold down, or remove, all the 2nd and 3rd row seats. Mine doesn't have the fold down 2nd row seats, but they come out pretty easy.

That was the biggest problem, folding or removing seats to haul anything. Of course all these new CUV's have the same problem as well since that are pretty much the same thing, just with hinged instead of sliding doors.