I'm in need of a bigger vehicle cause my family soon will be seven, and with gas prices being high I'm not sure what to try to buy. I also can't afford anything new, does anybody have any suggestions on what I could buy. Thanks
For that many people, and "reasonable" gas mileage, it seems that a mini-van might not be a bad idea. We're happy with our 2001 Ford Windstar SE Sport that I bought for $14,599 from Carmax on 12/26/02 with 27,000 miles on it when we bought it. It now has nearly 64,000 miles on it and has averaged 19.797 mpg since we've had it. And of course, I think the other brands are comparable.
I have never owned a mini van but have ridden in a few on ski trips. The ones I did ride in had lots of space for four/five of us and our gear. The milage was reasonable.
There should be a good assortment of used ones avalable. One word of caution though; with all the flooding some dried out vehicles may be marketed in far and distant places.
Thanks , We have looked into some mini-vans but some tend not to have alot of space for put grocerys, strollers and other things. We have also been told about suburbans and they have alot of space but the gas mileage isn't good so I've been told. thanks again Jerry
If you do any traveling as a family, I would suggest looking at a Ford Excursion. More than 50% of the Excursions were sold with a diesel motor which gets 18-20 mpg. It has plenty of capacity for a family of seven plus luggage. With the price of gas, you will find the price of used Ex's has dropped dramatically. I own a 2000 Excursion and love it. [img]/forums/images/icons/cool.gif[/img]
I have a 1994 chevy astro van extended that I bought 4 yrs ago for $5k ,It has dual a/c and is very nimble in parking lots and gets 19 around town and a little over 20 on a trip.
The Astro vans are a little bigger than most mini's and the extended has more cubic feet of space than a suburban with much better mileage. You can find them with all-wheel drive also if your in the snow belt. The two rear seats can be removed for hauling more JUNK!! Sometimes we just fold the re-most seat forward for that little bit of extra space, If your not taking everyone with you.
I have another question on the vehicles mentioned and is there any year of vehicles that have had problems that a person would want to avoid or any year that is better than the others....thanks Jerry
We bought an '05 Chevy Trailblazer EXT 4wd. It has a 6 cylinder engine w/ room for 7 to ride pretty comfortable. It rides and drives pretty nice. We really like it so far. We are averaging around 16/17 MPG w/ it. Right now it is mostly doing short trips taking the kids back and forth to school (2.5 miles each way/3 round trips each day). If we were to do more longer trips I'm sure that would go up quite a bit. So far we've had no issues with it. Right now you can get some pretty decent deals on them because of people dumping the SUV's because of MPGs.
If the mini-vans don't have enough room, and you'd even consider something in the price range and gas mileage of a Suburban or Excursion, then I think I'd also consider the full size vans. That would get you the maximum space for both people and cargo.
Thanks for the information. I haven't had much luck with buying vehicles from dealers it seems I always get a vehicle that has problems. I'm going to look into some of the vehicles mentioned to see what's available. Thanks again, Jerry
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