Minivan Review

First of all, I love minivans. I always have, for some reason. When I was in elementary school, my parents got their first minivan, and I was so excited about it! I love the extra room to spread our family out and seperate the children, if need be! It's great!

I am currently driving my second minivan. My first one was a dark purple 1998 Plymouth Grand Voyager. (Similar to this one):

It was nice. It had a roomy interior, dual sliding doors, plenty of leg room in the back seats and a decent amount of space to climb into the 3rd row seats.

Our current minivan, is a 2004 Ford Freestar. Like this one, only ours is tan.

It looks nice on the outside. And even ok on the inside. However, while still having the dual sliding doors (which are nice) they are very heavy and sometimes difficult to open and close, especially for the kids. I really wish my van had the power sliding door feature!

The back seats sit very low to the floor, so if you're taller than, say, 4 and a half feet tall, it's not very comfortable! The third row seat is nice in that it folds into the floor for added room for moving larger things. But, again, it's very low to the floor, and is the same width as the middle (2 seater) seat, but has 3 seatbelts. The middle seatbelt comes down from the ceiling of the van, so if it is in use, it is kind of annoying going down the middle of the back window.

There is also a very small space in which to climb through to get into the back past the middle seat. Our 9 year old is almost too big to get back there easily.

The middle row is a bench seat (it would probably make it easier if they were bucket seats so you could go between them, but, alas, they aren't.)

Our van did score well in crash tests, so, at least that's good! But all in all, I can't wait to trade her in. I know right now, with all the negative equity, we wouldn't be able to get anything nicer. But our next one is going to be WAY better!!