Babies and Cars

We have a 2000 VW golf, and prior to looking into getting a mortgage for an Odyssey...Oops, I mean a loan, we looked at the Element. Had I been starting from scratch, with no cars, the Element would have been our choice. We planned on, and so far, have, two little girls. The Element has more room than the Golf, but we bought the Golf and wanted to keep it... So, we ended up with a Caravan in addition to the Golf. I felt that if you can't afford the Odyssey (or the Sienna, although we did not like the Sienna as much) it really didn't matter. I have a friend who worked in Quality Control for Lear, who makes seats etc. for most major car companies, and her opinion was that the domestics were really all the same, i.e. not that great. Get a ride you can afford, the Element is pretty inexpensive and very rugged (car sickeness? You can hose out the back!) and invest in really good quality car seats (we favour the http://www.britaxusa.com/ car seats) Whew...there's my 30 or 40 cents!

Left this out 96 was the first year for a new body style, both engineering and sheet metal. However power train modules carried over from 95 and transmission problems were mostly eliminated by 93 if people used the correct fluid.

This might sound stupid, but what about an old four door Nova or Cadillac that is in good shape? It will cost $3k, and has those wide rear seats. When it needs a big repair in three years, you go out and buy another one, and it's only cost you $80, plus all the gasoline of course. I don't think anyone that has posted really understands the "inexpensive" concept. This isn't a terrible idea, and I'd have offered a similar idea myself, but for one thing: Melinika's profile shows her in Ontario, and that's not an ideal nurturing ground for older cars. It's hard to find one that isn't a rustbucket, and a rustbucket is not a safe car in which to transport children. Also, the cost of maintaining an older car is virtually nothing if you're handy with a wrench, but if you aren't, you could very well be screwed. That said, we were about to continue on our own vintage-car adventure and get an old sedan or wagon, but decided that we travel enough by car that a new, reliable vehicle was worth our money. And we drove old rattletraps while we saved up the money for one. But we're in California where old cars in fabulous condition are the rule.

I had the same criteria (one now planning for another soon) when I went looking to replace my Dakota 4x4 that got stolen this summer. I bought a 96 Caravan for C$2000 with 175Kms. A minivan is by far the interior space leader. Regardless of your domestic/import bias in the used market the Caravan is a good bet. Chrysler owns 40-50% of the minivan market with good reason. And that huge market share means parts are readily available. The stowable seats are a gimmick in my opinion. Like SpecialK said you need the seat all the time anyways. And when you don't your hauling around all that extra weight. Email me if you consider a Caravan. I can send you recommendations on which to be looking for and a great multipage write up of the improvements and reasearch that went into the 96 minivans.

This might sound stupid, but what about an old four door Nova or Cadillac that is in good shape? It will cost $3k, and has those wide rear seats. When it needs a big repair in three years, you go out and buy another one, and it's only cost you $80, plus all the gasoline of course. I don't think anyone that has posted really understands the "inexpensive" concept. Use the extra money to put in a dvd player! And get some phat rims. I'm only half-joking. [/mourning his old 79 Nova]

We just bought a Honda CRV and we love it. We probably paid more for it than you want to spend, but one thing to consider about the current crop of Hondas is that they have no scheduled maintenance for something like the first 100,000 miles. Change the oil, put gas in it and make sure the tires are in good shape, and you are good to go. One nice thing is that is has much more room inside than you would expect, and the mileage is as good as the Volvo V-70 station wagon that I traded in on it.

Safety-wise, I drove a '97 VW Jetta (bought used at 13k, and we paid more than we should have - sold it 18 months ago for ~$8k) and an '85 Volvo sedan, and never felt safer - I have this crazy idea that European cars are safer than any other. The Jetta was the car my baby would have been driven around in had we stayed in the US, so we had it set up with the baby capsule (Graco travel system) and everything and there was tons of room to spare. After those, I'd go for anything Honda for economy and ease-of-maintenance, although as soon as you get anything with a ton of electrics -- like all American cars -- it gets more time-consuming and hence more costly to repair. Thirdly I'd choose Toyota for price, decent but not great economy and ease of maintenance. I don't remember any North American car models any more, but a station wagon seems like a good bet, all right. My warning as far as Subarus goes is that the two we owned or drove in the US, both autos, both blew the transmissions and the one we actually owned cost a heck of a lot to fix. But maybe that was just the voodoo curse. (As far as the transporting two babies, I can't offer anything useful there but I will be bookmarking this page. :)

I second the Volvo station wagon. You can drive a Volvo off a 35-foot cliff and walk away unscratched.

I hesitate to suggest an american minivan but, here goes nothing. The 2000 Dodge Grand Caravan Sport/AWD can be had for about 9-13k. It has good consumer reviews, features dual sliding doors, all-wheel-drive plus it's pretty plush with a lot of bells and whistles for that kind of money. A friend has one, it's got back of the seat LCD/DVD's that were pretty trick back then. If I only had two kids, this would probably be what I hauled them with. As a longtime GM consumer, I've finally crossed the threshold where I can't reccommend any of them. If you do wish an import, look closely at the Toyota Sienna XLE 1999-2001. They are very similar to the Caravan and probably a bit more reliable and thoughfully built. The newest Siennas are AWD so, perhaps in a few years? Regardless, I'm a strong advocate of 2-4 year old used vehicles. Let someone else eat that new car price... Anyway, if a minivan is straight out for the family (I would understand if it was) please look at a gently used Volvo station wagon. A 15 year old Volvo is far safer and more reliable than a 2004 anything. I doubt much else will give you the backseat expanse that you're going to need. Back in the day, when we were running two carseats, we had a couple of station wagons. Now, for all eight (one carseat) of us, we can only fit into a full-sized van. When they get spouses and their own kids (not long now) I'll probably get a damn bus....