One Horrid Automobile

Hello everyone. I have had the chance for the past few days to ride in a vehicle so horrible it makes me long for a bicycle. My aunt is in town, thus her daughter has been driving her around and such. I have been on hour long trips in this vehicle the past few days and have been in this vehicle with 6 people. The vehicle is the Chrysler Grand Caravan. What a terrible car.
The power sliding doors are annoying, the second row bucket seats have no leg room, if you are in the back seat it is hard to get in and out, you can not hear the conversation from the back seat because the rear AC air intake sounds like a vacuim cleaner. The worst thing is the ride, wow can you say kidney punch? The funny part is she paid $30K for it, she got ripped off dude. LOL I think I will keep my 16 year old Ford Escort. LOL

Yet, you accepted her generosity of a ride. :huh:

lovenhim said:

I have had the chance for the past few days to ride in a vehicle so horrible it makes me long for a bicycle.

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This is actually one of the funniest sentences I've read in a long time.

Your whole post made me think of the early 80s Chevette ( diesel no less ) one of my mother's coworkers used to drive. I think it was 1.8L but I'm not sure. I never actually had the, ahem, pleasure of riding in it, but I'll take my mom's description of "bicycle with a cover" as accurate. She said the ride was horrid, and acceleration was, well, nonexistent ( the car basically gathered speed ).

jtr1962 said:

This is actually one of the funniest sentences I've read in a long time.

Your whole post made me think of the early 80s Chevette ( diesel no less ) one of my mother's coworkers used to drive. I think it was 1.8L but I'm not sure. I never actually had the, ahem, pleasure of riding in it, but I'll take my mom's description of "bicycle with a cover" as accurate. She said the ride was horrid, and acceleration was, well, nonexistent ( the car basically gathered speed ).

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ht3pgS2L7M

Best line of the song is in the beginning. "30 miles to the gallon, 0-60 sometimes". The van is a 2006 she bought new.

I don't know about you, but I don't buy my vehicles to please anybody but me. If your aunt's daughter(your sister?) is happy with it, then be happy for her.

If her van annoys you so much, perhaps you should drive your own vehicle.

Awww nowww I might be wrong but I think that's his cousin. He just needs to give her a kiss and see if that don't maker every little thing a little better.

lovenhim said:

The power sliding doors are annoying, ...

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Agreed - handbrake turning doors are much more agreeable.

jtr1962 said:

This is actually one of the funniest sentences I've read in a long time.

Your whole post made me think of the early 80s Chevette ( diesel no less ) one of my mother's coworkers used to drive. I think it was 1.8L but I'm not sure. I never actually had the, ahem, pleasure of riding in it, but I'll take my mom's description of "bicycle with a cover" as accurate. She said the ride was horrid, and acceleration was, well, nonexistent ( the car basically gathered speed ).

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Hey now! I resemble that remark.
Mine will have 300+ turbocharged HP, and sports 18" & 19" rims as well as a full roll cage and leather seats...

DaFABRICATA said:

Hey now! I resemble that remark.
Mine will have 300+ turbocharged HP, and sports 18" & 19" rims as well as a full roll cage and leather seats...

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And you have the HID blinders it looks like. Looks nice!

I love it when people take a car that is normally a piece of junk and turn it into a nice sleeper.

Time to disguise the intercooler so no one knows by looking.

Hold on , they have been generous enough to give you a ride and you are pounding them for it? I bet you're not even pitching in for the gas. Start walking...

You could ride with one of my friends, he drove a old VW bug for years. I don't know if anyone has ever rode in the old ones or not, but they're air cooled which really sucks in the winter time. So he drove around with a Coleman camp heater (propane fueled) with the windows cracked to keep from getting carbon monoxide poisoning. Oh, and did I mention he also smoked! :candle:

HEY! we actually just bought an '06 town and country limited touring signature (top o the line) minivan. Well, my wife did...i'm deployed so it puts a damper on car shopping...and our MRAPs don't come with baby seats. I love the thing honestly...rides like a mercedes, leather heated seats, DVD, nav, power EVERYTHING (i'm good with electronics so when it breaks i can fix it) and when you fold all the seats flat you got as much room as the bed of my truck inside! We also got it at 10k UNDER blue book (i guess a pregnant army wife with a deployed husband gets em every time) Either way I rather enjoyed the ride while i was on R&R. But the suspension is not designed for that heavy of a vehicle, so if you rode in one with 70k+ miles on it, it probably rode like a bull at the rodeo. I'm 5'9" and i could sit in any of the seats comfortably when they were adjusted properly. I know there is a lot of van-haters out there, and i never figured that i would own one before my 24th birthday, but kids and practicality take precedence over cool (and i still have my truck). Now if that long winded defence didn't make me sound insecure i don't know what will Kidding of course, the first time you hafta wrestle a newborn and a toddler and groceries...those magic doors are literally a godsend.

DaFABRICATA said:

Hey now! I resemble that remark.
Mine will have 300+ turbocharged HP, and sports 18" & 19" rims as well as a full roll cage and leather seats...

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That just seems so wrong...

DaFABRICATA said:

Hey now! I resemble that remark.
Mine will have 300+ turbocharged HP, and sports 18" & 19" rims as well as a full roll cage and leather seats...

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Somebody stole your tires!
(And, you have a headlight out.)

DaFABRICATA said:

Hey now! I resemble that remark.
Mine will have 300+ turbocharged HP, and sports 18" & 19" rims as well as a full roll cage and leather seats...

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You're essentially making a silk purse out of a sow's ear. Nice work! I'm more partial to EV retrofits than larger engines, but either one makes the car into something much better than it was. Better yet, it's a stealth ride!

We bought a brand new 1996 grand caravan and drove it (with kids) for 12 years and 250,000 miles. It was very comfortable in every way I can think of ( i was always in one of the front seats) and very reliable, always got better fuel economy than what was stated on the window sticker. The biggest downfall, and I mean big enough that I would never buy another Chrysler product, was the transmission. It was not heavy duty enough for a van and had to be replaced twice. Chrysler knew about trans problems and really didn't seem to care.I believe they finally put something better in them in 2008. Too late for me! Other than that the whole family loved that van and were sad to see it go even though we sold it to in-laws.
Sorry your ride was so painful!

Dunno what model year the OP is talking about, but the 2005 Dodge Grand Caravan SXT my dad owns is a very soothing car to ride in -- all the more so now, since he got a worn rear wheel bearing replaced a couple of weeks ago. The only really bad thing is the stock speakers were trash -- I mean really, really trash, I felt bad for the garbage can when I threw them away -- but with the new Infinity speakers I installed for him, it rides smooth and sounds good too. Sometimes I get leg discomfort because the seats are tall and I'm not, but that's hardly the vehicle's fault.

lightplay22 said:

We bought a brand new 1996 grand caravan and drove it (with kids) for 12 years and 250,000 miles. It was very comfortable in every way I can think of ( i was always in one of the front seats) and very reliable, always got better fuel economy than what was stated on the window sticker. The biggest downfall, and I mean big enough that I would never buy another Chrysler product, was the transmission. It was not heavy duty enough for a van and had to be replaced twice. Chrysler knew about trans problems and really didn't seem to care.I believe they finally put something better in them in 2008. Too late for me! Other than that the whole family loved that van and were sad to see it go even though we sold it to in-laws.
Sorry your ride was so painful!

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Funny you should mention it, when I was growing up my dad owned a '95 Plymouth Voyager and both the engine and transmission were fine. He had the transmission replaced at 150,000mi, but that's because he wanted a factory-rebuilt transmission installed. Ended up putting 285 grand on that beast before it got taken to the junkyard, and even then the junkyard guys said they were going to keep using it to carry parts around.

Did you have the 3.0L or 3.5L engine? If you had the larger engine, that might've been the problem. It's all water under the bridge now, but the 3.0L was a better engine anyway -- made by Mitsubishi, using the same block used in the Mistubishi FUSO delivery trucks. That engine only ever needed sparkplugs and oil seals replaced.

A drivable car is better than no car. As much as I enjoy my bicycle, it has limitations and certainly not easy to have a night on the town with or sharing the company with friends-family.

Our '96 model had the 3.3L engine which had a steel timing gear and chain. The factory transmission made 138,000 miles. The rebuild (not Chrysler) lasted 40,000 mi. and the last was a Chrysler factory replacement which was beginning to show signs of the same problems that previous ones started doing, namely not wanting to downshift after turning a street corner. The engine ran perfectly and at the 3,000 mi oil change was usually about 1/16" below the full mark on the stick.