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Vehicle Suggestions?
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Sorry to hear of your Honda troubles. I’ve only ever owned Hondas and have never had difficulty. I’m on my 2nd Odyssey (99 and then 2010) now and both have been great. Goes to show that you could get a lemon from anywhere at times.
I can recommend against both Caravans and Chrysler vans (Town and country, I think). My dad has purchased 4 and the transmissions failed in all of them.
I do have friends with Suburbans and Yukons who like those and a friend with a 15 passenger that works for their large (7 kids and growing) family. Perhaps that is the way to go, if your family is to continue growing.
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Oh, PS, missceegee reminded me of the transmission troubles… We haven’t had it happen yet, but it’s coming. We saw the reviews, but we were in a hurry to buy our vehicle (an accident left us without one) and it was like the only minivan with decent mileage and a decent pricetag in all of Milwaukee County to be had.
If we had had a choice, we never would have bought it. <sigh>Hi LillyLou,
I’d go for a super big van if you are thinking of more kids. We have 2004 Chevy Express 3500. It’s a 15 passenger. It has 4 benches-3 seat, 3 seat, 3 seat, 4 seat. We usually take one of the seats out and then have lots of room for kids and strollers, camping stuff, food, what have you. Plus, we still have room for more kids and for visiting relatives : ). We love it!
Our story: We bought a Suburban when #5 was a baby. We figured that would be fine for awhile and, since we always buy used, we figured it’d die before we ever needed something bigger (we weren’t sure we were going to have more at that time). God did send more and we grew out of our Suburban with the addition of #7 BUT my husband had also lost his job just before #7 was born (right before we were going to buy a huge van) and we had to save every cent so we could make it financially (he was laid off for 9 months). So everywhere we went we had to take two cars-way more expensive gas wise than a huge van! It was quite frustrating and limited our ability to do much of anything with our kids. When #7 was 1, we were finally able to get a van and ride together. In hindsight, I wish we would have just gone straight to the huge van, saving us the middle step, the stress and even some money (since after it was driven for 4 years the Suburban was sold for less than we bought it and then we bought the huge van afterall).
-Rebecca
Rebecca: My husband came home and read through this thread, and liked the idea of an Express (it was something we’d thought of, but it was nice to hear from an owner). He got online, and it looks like we may have found one in our price range close to where we live-YAY! Now we really have to pray about financing, because, like you’re situation, we haven’t had “regular” employment since October (long story, but it’s working out okay, and I’m proud of my husband’s diligence). So thanks for the recommendation, looks like it might work for us. And, also like you, we’re kind of thinking we’d like to skip the “transition” vehicle, and just go straight forward with the larger van.
MissCeeGee: yep, we thought about a larger SUV like a Tahoe, etc, but have heard reports of how difficult it is to get car-seated babes in and out. I think we will pursue a larger van-probably a 12 passenger rather than a 15 though…
You guys are awesome, thanks again,
LillyLou
We LOVE our Chevy Express. We have a 12 passenger and for most stuff we have plenty of room without taking seats out (there’s space behind the back row that I don’t think the 15 passenger has….). We only have 6 (sometimes 7 if my sister is staying with us) of us right now, but adopting more.
We moved up from a Sequoia. We had trouble with getting in and out and the boys (now 13 and 11) were feeling scrunched back there. The middle row had a flip seat but if we put a booster seat there they couldn’t use it and we had hineys and feet in the air. If we put the girls’ boosters close together you could use the flip seat, BUT then the girls couldn’t buckle themselves. We love that everyone can just get in and walk into their row and seat. No climbing or finagling…
We got ours from a PeteMoore Automotive in Pensacola. He had trouble finding one here in south LA…. They were great to deal with. We actually splurged on a conversion b/c we like road trips. We drove to Sarasota the first week of June. And my dh just got back yesterday from a dad/son hunting trip (5 dads and sons) to west TX. They had to take 2 vehicles b/c of numerous ice chests and bow cases and stands, but still fit lots of kids in it.
tandc93: Thank you for telling me about your Express. The more we hear about them, the more we’re attracted to them. And, come to find out, vehicle shipping isn’t that bad in the great scheme of things, so buying one from a distance might not be a bad thing. Let me ask you this: what year is your Express, and how many miles did it have on it when you bought it? I ask because it seems that even the newer ones we’re finding have a lot of miles on them; I’m just wondering, really, what is “a lot” of miles for an Express? Thanks for your input!
LillyLou
I had looked into shipping too and you’re right, in the scheme of things it wasn’t at much as I would have thought. The kids and I just made a road trip to trade in the Sequoia and hit the forts in Pensacola.
Anthony (at Pete Moore) was really good. He looked around for a week or two and found this one for us. It’s a 2009 and I believe it had about 21,000 miles on it. A bit more than I would have liked, but I figured it had only been for a year…. It was a fleet van before.
Funny, in a 15 months, I have put about 25,000 miles on it!!!! As you can see, we take a lot of road trips….
We really are pleased with it. The seats can be taken in and out easily. So much more room. Captains seats up front (with seat heaters…didn’t ask for them, just were already in there). Then the first and second bench fit 3 each and the back row sits 4. I can easily fit my double jogging stroller and a couple of camp chairs and blanket and 2 baseball bags in the back at the same time. Or lots of groceries.
Tristan, I know this thread is old now, but I have a question about your ford: How many shoulder belts does it have? The ones we’re finding only have shoulder belts for the end seats. Of course, we may be looking at earlier models (2004-ish) If you don’t have all shoulder belts, how do you buckle in car seats? Does it have LATCH?
Thanks Tristan,
LillyLou
No problem LillyLou –
Our 12 passenger Ford E-350 XLT has 6 shoulder belts for the rear (not counting driver and passenger in front). Each of the 3 bench seats has 2 shoulder belts, then they each have 1 or 2 lap belts. We’ve not had more than 6 in carseats/boosters (we’ve got 5 in them and a 10yo right now, when baby is born in Jan we’ll have 6 in them with the 2nd oldest being 7 and getting close to being out of a booster.)
Hope that helps.
And I dont’ know about latch, but I don’t think it has that.
While this doesn’t address cars, it does help with carseats… Have you seen the Radians? They are SUPER narrow, you can easily fit three in the back row of a minivan, now they ARE expensive, but if getting three of these could keep you in a normal minivan the expense would probably be easily made up with the better gas mileage. I only have ONE radian, but plan to get another for our honda odyssey. So we have two five point harness highback boosters in the rear with the radian – rearfacing in between – it’s a VERY Tight fit, but my 7 yo dd straps and unstraps the 1 yo dd in the rear facing. Then I have my 3 yo dd in a car seat directly behind the driver – that still leaves me room for a large adult in the front seat and two average size adults in the middle row (that middle seat in the middle row wouldn’t be super comfortable to ride in for a LONG trip, but around town, I can sit there no problem while my husband drives and 2 adult guests ride in the front and bucket seat behind the passenger. Make sense? I would have one caution – the Radian rear facing is VERY long so you’d have to move the seat in front of it up, or put it in the middle.
UPDATE: My very best friend in the whole world watched my children (all three) yesterday for 12 hours while my husband and I drove all over creation in his little work truck looking at vans. We did drive home in a 2004 Ford Econoline 12 passenger (yay!). Although this one only seats 8 at present-that’s just fine, we’ll add the last bench later. I appreciate everyone’s input, and we feel we did well with the budget we had, and the requirements this van had to fit. We also found someone willing to give us a few hundred $$ for our broken Honda-Praise the Lord!
Rebekahy: I am looking at the Radians and they are mighty appealing! We currently have our youngest in a Recaro-which we love, but it is rather wide. (It’s kind of like a Britax) The Radian looks like it accomodates children to an even higher weight and height, so I’m very excited about trying it. I’m also very interested in purchasing a high back booster from them for my 8yo. She uses one now, but it’s getting rather old, and I’d like something a little more substantial for her, especially considering that the Ford doesn’t have headrests-I’m not willing to take her out of a highback until absolutely necessary. Have you had any experience with the hb boosters? I’m having a hard time finding a store that actually carries them though-I’d like to actually see one in person, and perhapse try it in our van before purchasing one. I very much thank you for the suggestion-I thought I’d only ever buy Recaros from now on, but it looks like my opinion has changed!
If we had had a choice, we never would have bought it. <sigh>
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