After about 900 miles of driving... I learned that I will NEVER buy one of these and will do my absolute best to avoid driving one ever again. What a horrible vehicle. Granted, it has seating for 7 possibly 8... but that's only really useful if your familiy is the equivalent of it's own soccer team. Now you may ask, what is so terrible wrong with this vehicle? For starters, and this is a big big issue. The damn thing has no brakes! It is like driving a tractor trailor when it comes to stopping. Stopping distances require that you look into the next zip code to see traffic conditions and be wary if a panic stop must be initiated. Pushes of the brake pedal really do not slow the vehicle down, they more just attempt to change direction of the vehicle from a straight to verticle as if the vehicle was trying to drive underground with the massive nose dive.

Next negative issue ... while it just manage to have a decent amount of low end torque (I'm guessing to motivate the soccer team from stop lights), the power required to achieve anything over a snails pace is just not there. Highway cruising speed around here is 70, achiving anything over that requires a clear length of road that could double as a runway for a 747.

Well, it's a minivan, so we won't even bother to examine the lack of handling... next section.

As for comfort... the drivers chair is the only one I really sat in, but it's is like sitting on carboard ontop of a piece of granite semi molded towards the shape of your body. The headrest are nonadjustable, so if you head does not fit that particular curvature... you're out of luck. The support is pretty much non existant. You've have a better ride is you took out the drivers seat and replaced it with an upside down painters bucket.

The radio... well, it works. That's an upside, but controlling it while simple... leaves much to the imagination when it comes to quality. I guess, they made it that way so that if you crank it up you can hopefully drown out that soccer team with noise (it really wouldn't be music, just noise).

After my time behind the wheel... I don't think I'll every drive one of these things again. I can only hope their Japanese equivalents have much much more thought put into them or else the soccer mom era will soon be doomed to oblivion since the only thing left for these things to do is spontaneously combust to be any worse.

EDIT: By the way... the cupholders suck!

There are 2 minivans in the world I will swear by. Honda Oydessy and the Chevy Astro/GMC Safari (though dead this year)

The Chevy/GMC only cause they are a little bigger on the inside and being true trucks they with stand abuse, and can tow.

I would not hesitate with a Toyota or Nissan, but the dynamics of the Oydessy are so good, that I swear by them.

Well, my friend just got back from Spring Break. Over the break, the school planned a trip to Grand Canyon. The school rented minivans, and yep, you guessed it, they got Freestars.
They had an '06 Freestar with 5,000 miles on it when the pulley snapped and the serpintine belt came off. :rolleyes If quality is job 1, I'd hate to see what the rest of the list looks like. :rolleyes

ford minivans are the worst and i think always have been. chrysler/toyotas own them

For a minivan, the Nissan Quest looks pretty sweet and seems like it has good build quality.
If I had to get a minivan though, this would do it...
http://forums.autoweek.com/servlet/JiveServlet/download/13-11670-226903-2497/Renault%20Espace%20F1.jpg

If I had to get a minivan. Or atleast if I had the need to.

THen I'd get a LAND ROVER DISCOVERY..

minivans ftl.

Minivans suck, till you trade with your buddy for a week

Dual power sliding doors ..putting the kids in is a piece of cake

sets fold down, carried 4*8 plywood and two ten foot two by sixes

carreid robots and robotics team and all computers and tools

kick ass sound system

great power (3.8 ftw)- Chrysler

styling is nt that bad, handling is nuetral if not numb


minivans ftw..


Image FTL


Ill keep the suburban

did I mention 20mpg in town?

um what about Land Rover? they have what ? 7 or 8 seats? similar to a minivan.

But much better handling, and performance. Aggressive.

yeah but you are missing the point.

Minivans convenience and fuel economy and swiss army knife capability blow away the land rover

hell, i wouldnt kick a land rover out of my driveway but I wouldnt buy a minivan either. After driving one for 5 days I see the advantage..big time

um what about Land Rover? they have what ? 7 or 8 seats? similar to a minivan.

But much better handling, and performance. Aggressive.


SUVs do not handle better than minivans.

SUVs have a higher CoG than minivans. I'd rather drive a minivan than an SUV anyday of the week. I am secure enough in my manhood to know that what I drive does not demonstrate who I am.

Minivans are more versitile, easier to use, IMO handle better, not to mention - to get the same level of acceleration in a SUV vs a minivan typically requires a bigger, more thirsty engine.

And living in a snow belt state, there are maybe a total of 20 days out of the year when 4wd will help you - other than that it just another way to burn more fuel, and promote stupid driving.

Last winter after a blizzard, I talked to a tow truck driver - 70-80% of calls into the company were for SUVs and Pickups that thought they could defy physics and learned Physics>all.

Even at 70% of all calls - well over half are for vehicles that supposedly can't get stuck. :rolleyes

I am guessing that those 70% that did get stuck never used the 4wd to go offroading a day in their life.

There are some SUVs that I like, and there are some that I can see driving but for their intended purpose -

For everything else - a minivan or a wagon.

minivans ftw. The only two i will every buy

BMW

Toyoa is talking about a prius level hybrid of their sienna van. ill do that

The new Dodge Sprinter is pretty rugged (it is a Mercedes in disgiuse after all). Dunno if they'll make a «civilian» version of it tho.

Ford makes the biggest POS cars around. i can't think of ONE car they make that i would choose over another brand... seriously. FORD FTL!

yeah, their new cars though are so much bette,r I think a pretty good value for the money/size they are

The brakes must be a ford thing... I drove a girl's Taurus to Dallas and back once and MY GOD. The brakes felt exactly likeyou described them here. I must've nearly run 10 red lights with 10 seconds of notice each. Yuck.

Ford makes the biggest POS cars around. i can't think of ONE car they make that i would choose over another brand... seriously. FORD FTL!
I agree but their F-150's seem to be pretty well built. My dad has an `02 were selling with 82k on the clock and we upgraded to a `05. Both are stripped out (V6, 5-spd) so not much to go wrong but they have treated us fair. I was comparing it to a friend's late model basic Tundra and the basic F-150 was better equipped.

It came with split bench (basically real chairs) instead of a bench, rear ventilated rotors instead of drums on the Tundra, the shifter was in a comfy location while the Tundra I had to reach for and I'm 6`0, the F-150 has a tach while the Tundra didn't, better safety ratings by IIHS on the F-150, firmer set up suspension on the F-150, standard 2 mini opening doors on regular cab with room behind the chairs which the Tundra lacked, much deeper/wider bed on the F-150...basically I found the F-150 to be more impressive in all ways except it used an old school OHV V6 as standard instead of Toyota's DOHC V6 with VVT-i and the F-150 has a sorta weak Mazda built 5-spd instead of the Toyota's 6-spd.

those are good trucks, decent power, great mileage, and like you said, what cvan go wrong?

ford minivans are the worst and i think always have been. chrysler/toyotas own them

chrystler/gm vans are awful. just as bad as the ford.

japanese do minivans better. that's it.

Ford makes the biggest POS cars around. i can't think of ONE car they make that i would choose over another brand... seriously. FORD FTL!


thanks for the pointless opinion.

Ford makes quite a few cars i would buy and quite a few i would avoid. just like GM... and chrystler...

Whats wrong with chrysler minivans?
At least they are comfortable and powerful before they break

Whats wrong with chrysler minivans?
At least they are comfortable and powerful before they break

my point, exactly. they break and fall apart from day one :shifty i've never heard a good thing about one, compared to japanese minivans.

i have a 99 chrysler town and country lxi, never had a problem with it, until i starting burning out and doing j-turns with it, then the transmission fell out, but that was under warranty. other than that the van has been bullet proof. rides a good today as it did the day we got it. it has 107k on it now and i still wot it every now and then to keep the injectors clean and engine breathing.

I'm with dan on this one, sad thing is they have some clever LOOKING cars too, the new mustang was a great throwback attempt, the new gt looks very svelt, and a lot of their concepts are nice, and yes less i forget the gt-500 "bargain", but they're all rolling pieces of shit. Dan I totaly agree, there is no model that for the same price in the same segment you couldn't get something significantly better.

-Spargo

I beg to differ. Mercury has some very nice cars out. The Milan is exceptional. Have you driven it? Very peppy, smooth, and stylish. I damn near bought one, black on black, for 25K

Rumor has it that Ford will kill the Freestar/Monterey next year. :rofl :rofl :rofl

on my last trip I rented a Chevy SUV. The controls are so different from what I'm used to, I found myself flicking the wheel just slightly to the left or right to avoid snow patches or whatever, and nothing happened (dead on center)

You call that a minivan? THIS is a minivan.

http://www.auto-power-girl.com/photo-gallery/renault-espace-f1-concept/renault-espace-f1-concept-2002.jpg

After ten years of partnership between Renault and Matra, in 1994 came on the market a new car: the Espace F1. Matra used 1994 world champions Williams Renault’s power train unit and the engine was fitted centrally in the Espace without changing the model. In order to do this they , they took an Espace off the assembly-line, cut out its floor pan to replace it with a carbon body structure harbouring the 820 hp V10, sequential box and automatic attitude control. With a special front end, ad hoc brakes and aerodynamic appendices to prevent it from flying away, it could get up to 300 kph!