Buying a Minivan Cost vs. Zoom Zoom

[MDdan]

Well folks, here's the dilemma. I have an 86 GMC Safari with 270k miles, and I've decided I'm not going to feed it it's next round of $1500 in repairs. So it's time to buy.

Here are the choices:

2002 Mazda MPV- awesome van, my wife and I love it. Zoom Zoom...this thing runs and drives great. Wow...love this van.

Price: 20k

2002 Mercury Villager(same van as Nissan Quest)- V6, reliable, doesn't have rear air ducts, which is very important to my wife. I say kids need a little hardship in their life, and sweating in the back of a van never hurt anyone too badly. Awesome van for the money, but not in the same catagory as the MPV.

Price 15k

(yes...really, we got the promo van from the Newspaper ad, it's sitting in the driveway for a weekend test, we need to decide by monday)

Obviously, 5k is a big difference. We would really rather pay for neither of them, although I expect to have higher pay by half way through next year. But until then, the Mazda will make things pretty tight. No computer upgrades for me.

My wife and I both like the MPV, but we're practical folks, and the Villager is a really, really, really good deal.

I think both vans should be equally reliable.

So which one should we buy folks? My wife and I can't decide.

Villager! 5 grand is 5 grand!!

[MDdan]

That's easy for you to say, have you driven the MPV? Wow..Zoom Zoom...what a great driving van, it really drives like a car. A pretty sporty car at that!

The MPV is my...dare I say it...Dream Van. Yes, it is the perfect minivan.

The Villager drives just fine. That's it. It drives fine. *yawn*

I'd probably go with the Mazda, myself. You'll be driving it for the next few years.

Well I did drive the Villager a few years ago, and I thought it was a dream! course I was driving an extended Aerostar at the time!

[DaveLewis]

Last weekend I lived out of an MPV renter. 16 hours in airports, 10 hours in the van, about 12 hours crashed at my brother's place - all so we could do about 5 hours at a wedding. This was from 2PM Friday to about 6PM Sunday. Anyway the van was probably the best part of the trip.

[Atomic Rooster]

Go see if you can get the price on the Mazda knocked down. Let it slip that you're considering the Mercury and that it's $5000 cheaper. They may come down to get the sale.

[Ed_S]

We used a Villager for an emergency weekend trip a couple years ago. I thought it was a fine van, just WAY too cramped compared to our Aerostar, which was in need of tires & it was just quicker to grab something else...one of the perks of working at a dealership!
(Sorry, Surreal - we really like our Aerostar!)

Anyway, I'd also take a look at a Windstar if I were you.

The Mazda would never even be considered by me - I'd literally never look at one. Doesn't matter what it has. It's NOT a "Big 3" vehicle, end of that story.

It pains me to say this BUT if you really love the [choke]Mazda[/choke], then you'll really never be happy with the Villager.

Errr.. regarding the rear air, depending on the childrens age, the "hardship" you mentioned would be suffered mostly by the adults in front...

[nomaxim]

How old are the kids?
How long till they drive around going,"zoom,zoom"?

[MDdan]

Kids are 2 and 1..hehe..yeah, we have lots of fun on long trips.

My opinion of vans:

Villager - small, and great prices, unrefined and dated though

MPV- Zoom Zoom...woohoo...like this one. Small though

Caravan/Voyager- I do not consider transmissions to be a routine maintence item. End of story, decent van, but I don't trust reliability. Also forces you to run up price on options, price isn't as good as it looks in the paper once you spec it out.

Windstar- Haven't driven yet. Seem a bit expensive though.

Toyota Sienna- Typical toyota, worked just fine, nothing special, overpriced.

Kia Sedona- Hey, if it was 15k, I'd look at one. But not cheap enough to even bother. I trust the Villager/Quest alot more.

Honda- nice van, too expensive