With the impending doom of child number two, we’re going to need a bigger car if we ever want to travel with company. And so, the inevitable minivan search begins.
It should be said that I have no interest in owning a minivan, and the only consolations here are that it will be primarily Berta’s car and that it’s going to be utterly loaded out the wazoo.
Yes, we’re going full-bore on the extras. This car will have a moon roof, DVD player, and navigation system. Those are our mostly non-negotiable options. If the car doesn’t come with them, then the price must reflect it and available aftermarket versions must work with the car.
Apart from the options, we’re not looking for too much. A comfortable ride is good. The van has to handle as much like a car as possible - no wobbling or bouncing like Mom’s old minivan. Ick.
Berta narrowed down her list of the models she liked to just four by looking online. The first one we looked at was the Mazda MPV.
The Mazda MPV is the smallest of the four minivans. The fact that this doesn’t actually make the van “mini” at all doesn’t escape my sense of humor. I did not drive this car, but Berta says it handles like a car, which I believe since it is the smallest of the bunch.
The MPV is the only minivan that has windows in the sliding doors that roll down. Why the heck can’t the other car companies add this to their vans? It’s so cool.
Like all of the other vans we’ve seen so far, the rearmost seat folds down into the deep-well cargo area. Unlike all of the other models, the seat flips backward to become a tailgate seat, facing backward. That’s neat, but I don’t think we’ll ever do it.
Unfortunately, there are a few shortcomings in the MPV. Navigation is not offered as an option, although the dealer will install an aftermarket GPS system. The middle row of seats doesn’t fold away; they must be removed. Everything on the base model is an extra, so the cheap price tag of the MPV starts to look just as bad as the other vans when it gets everything we want in it.
The second van we looked at was the Nissan Quest. Nissan’s van was totally tricked out. Berta had said that it had all of the features, and she wasn’t mistaken.
The Quest had a moon roof, DVD player, and four windows in the ceiling above the rear seats. The in-dash navigation system was hooked to all of the car’s systems, so when you sneeze it registers on the screen. There were presets for two drivers so that the seat, mirrors, and wheel all automatically adjusted to that driver’s comfort at the push of a button. It had heated seats with electronic adjustment controls.
All of the seats in the back folded flat. There were also separate controls for air and the DVD player in the back seats. The sliding doors and trunk opened and closed by remote. Even the windows would wind down and up automatically.
Perhaps this will best describe the extent of craziness in extras this car exudes: There is a GPS system in the car, so it knows where you are. You can program the car so that if you sit within a certain distance of a certain location (like your driveway) for a certain amount of time, it will open your garage door automatically. Crazy.
In spite of the superiour gadgetry, I had a problem with the car.
The minivan itself is huge. Real vans are smaller. I kept trying to tell this to the sales guy on the lot, and Berta kept agreeing with him that I was crazy. But when I showed her the details online, there was no denying it. The car is a foot and a half longer than the MPV. 17 feet. And that was just the start of the bigness.
The dash of the Quest is enormous. If you’ve ever driven a Neon, it’s just like that. There’s this huge void between you and the windshield glass that is unnerving when you see it. I even told the guy at first that I didn’t want to drive it because I wouldn’t feel comfortable behind all of that dash. It really did bother me, but I guess it wasn’t so bad after I got out driving it.
The Quest and the MPV both drove very nicely. There was no bobble. I always have feared the minivan because my mom’s always rode like the Oscar-Mayer Weinermobile, bouncing down the road from side-to-side like some black and white Disney cartoon.
The Toyota Sienna was next. Maybe it was the attitude of the salesman, but I just did not want to buy this car.
Oh, everyone wants one. We can’t keep them on the lot. We’re going to have trouble getting one for you if you want anything but these two models. Yeah, ok.
Anyway, the ride was crap. I don’t care what Consumer Reports says (and as I told Berta when leaving the lot, I find Consumer Reports a little suspect, anyway), that thing was not stable and probably would have rolled right over if I would have pushed it a little more. Just wait until the shocks get broken in and expect to feel the spring.
Berta also commented that it was a kind of conservative car. There was wood-grain in the inside (the only trim that is available on the LXI, the only model that had the features we wanted) and it seemed like all of the options were half-done. For instance, simple things like the remote trunk opener. On the other car with this feature (the Quest, of course), pushing the button again would close it, too. Not the Sienna. There were rear air controls in the back, but only at one seat. In the top of the line model, the DVD player was an extra. Plus, the navigation system wasn’t in the one we drove.
I think Berta was referring more to the styling of car, anyway. It did look like it was styled in the 90’s. It didn’t seem like much care was put into the arrangement of seats within the car. They looked like they were added as an afterthought to the assembly of the body. Really, the only thing I liked about the innards was that the automatic shifter was low on the console, whereas in the other cars it was high.
A couple of other notes about the seat in the Sienna: The rear bench had a 60/40 split so you could fold down only half of it, which was kind of nice, but only the MPV didn’t split the back seat in half. The middle seats in the Sienna didn’t fold flat but kind of rolled up behind the cockpit seats. You could take them out, but all of the weird seat-locking mechanisms leave holes in the floor even when the seats are all positioned normally.
We have yet to look at the Honda. We pressed our noses up against the glass of one in town, and what I saw didn’t really impress me, but I might have been looking at a lesser model.
All of the options we want bring the cars into the same price range, so now it’s just a matter of finding one that is nice to drive and suits us.
Ugh.
