Tuesday, May 03, 2011

Only 23 more to go

At the end of April 2009 we acquired 48 months of car payments. We bought a 2006 Grand Caravan with 24,000 miles on it and I wrote this post about it.

I thought I would update that post with my thoughts after 2 years of ownership

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We had looked at 2008 version in an electric blue first & I liked it more. But I didn’t like it $4000 more. It had the same mileage & I like the radio better. I mostly liked that it was electric blue.

Because there are exactly zero electric blue mini vans in the Wal Mart parking lot at any given time.

But silver?

You can’t swing a cat without hitting a silver mini van in the Wal Mart parking lot.

However it does have electric doors, so I can stand in the general vicinity of several silver mini vans, push the remote & then go to whichever one’s door opens.

***2010*** This losing-the-car-in-the-parking-lot thing is pretty much a monthly occurrence. I regularly find myself standing next to a silver minivan, pressing the remote unlock button & wondering if the battery on the remote has died because the door remains locked. It isn’t until I actually look in the van that I realize it isn’t mine. Then I start walking around pressing the rear door button on the remote until it opens & I can finally locate my own minivan

***2011*** I’m still doing this on a regular basis. “Look for the silver mini van!” has become the standing joke in our family

Mayhem loves the electric doors. He pushes the button & then stands in the doorway waiting until the last possible second to leap through the gap, like Indiana Jones.

Assuming Indiana Jones would have anything to do with a mini van.

***2010*** Mayhem gave this up during the summer. Now, both boys are so blasé about the auto doors they can’t even be bothered to push the button to close the door after them, leaving the Magic Door Button Fairy (me) to do so

***2011** Dude, push the damn button already. How hard is it to remember?

I wanted a car with more space for luggage and thought a third row would be nice for the 3 times a year I need to seat more than 4 people in the car. We looked at a lot of hatchbacks with 3rd row seating & then we got to the 08 Grand Caravan

It has this

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Stow & go seating. No need to take out chairs or benches & find somewhere to store them.

And when the seat isn’t collapsed you have a storage bin!

The car has POCKETS! I couldn’t resist the pockets

It gives me the ability to do this

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Havoc sits in the second row, Mayhem in the third & I get all this space to climb in and get everyone settled without pulling any muscles reaching over anyone.

The real bonus though is that they CAN’T TOUCH each other.

Sweet Mary & Jesus what an unexpected blessing!!! They can’t grab things away from each other. They can’t push or shove each other.  Drives are so much quieter now.

And! And! The boys decided all on their own that they wanted to sit that way! They do it willingly!

***2010*** Seriously, y’all, this is key! The not sitting next to one another thing is so wonderful! Having that seat down makes the van feel so spacious and roomy! Even when Mayhem is alone riding with me, he sits in the back seat. He likes the shelf and pockets next his seat back there. I had to pop that seat up & move Mayhem into it when we bought the new TV and TV stand and OMG! the car felt sooooo crowded! And the boys COULD NOT STOP TOUCHING each other while they were sitting next to one another. I could not get that seat stowed again fast enough.

***2011*** Lately Mayhem has been suggesting he might like to sit next to his brother & thinks I should pop up that seat. I’m holding out for as long as I can though. It always ends in tears when we let him sit there.

I may never pop up that other seat again.

The only drawback is Mayhem is so far back I have to throw snacks to him and hope he catches them.

Bring the water & pemmican! I’m headed for the back of the mini van!

Speaking of the back of the mini van

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There is no trip to Sam’s I cannot make.

I won’t have to UPS clothes to FL for our vacation this year. 

DH won’t have to pack the explosives around the children when we buy fireworks in South Carolina.

It even has a roof rack, in case, you know, we want to bring our bed with us.

***2010***I have not been to Sams much since I bought the car. With the end of needing diapers and formula and finding fresh chicken in bulk elsewhere, there hasn’t been much need for buying things at Sams. But! I was able to pack everything for our trip to FL and DH was able to buy a bunch of fireworks and all of it fit fine in the back area.  Plus it hauled a bunch of furniture from IKEA and the aforementioned TV and stand.

***2011*** No large purchases this year, but did you  know you can fold down all the seats and fit a queen sized futon in the back? True. DH does it sometimes while camping.

Then there is the entertainment system.

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It doesn’t play 8 tracks, VHS or Blue ray but other than that you are good to go. It has a cassette player, a CD player that also plays mp3s, plus an AUX jack for my mp3 player & Sirius satellite radio. Hell, it may even get AM & FM stereo but where we live there is only the Christian Country station & a static-y NPR station from someplace about 75 miles or so away & I haven’t really tried those out.

It’s overkill in a big way. All I use is the Sirius and the AUX jack. But it makes no sense to have it replaced because I want to get rid of features.

***2010*** I still only use the Sirius and the AUX jack & had to get SOMETHING INSTALLED to it so I can listen to my mp3 player while the kids are watching a movie. Somehow in all that media overkill that little feature got forgotten

***2011*** Stupid new AUX jack is the bane of my existence. It has cable issues, meaning every single connector cable we try comes across static-y after about 2 hours of listening

Oh, and it has a 6 disc DVD changer. 6 DISCS people! That’s like 12 hour of non-stop movie viewing (or at least 12 hours of no arguments about who’s turn it is to pick a movie because that was all decided before we left home & you get what ever is next up in the player) And wireless headsets! We had a dual monitor portable DVD player we strapped to the back of our headrests in the Cruiser. They were connected by assorted cables & there were other wires that plugged into the car and headset wires…wires all over the damn place.

It’s not an option we would ever have chosen ourselves because it just seems like a hassle waiting to break, but I’m delighted to have it. We use it on any trip over 90 minutes long & we take one of those every month just about.

***2010***We still think it is a hassle waiting to break but we still love it. It actually gets used less than I predicted. For instance it was last used when we came back from FL at the end of November. But it was like the Holy Grail of travel accessories for that trip. Mayhem has a tendency to switch receiver channels on his headset, thus cutting off the sound, and then wailing & whining about it NOT WORKING STUPID FING! and since we never know if it’s user error or dead battery & the headsets don’t receive in the front seats (behind the video screen), the passenger seat rider has to lean back at an extreme angle in their seat to get their head in front of the movie screen and then play with the buttons to test the headset, or pull over the car, get out, get in the back and then test the headset should there be no passenger available. Not fun. But since movies get watched on maybe 5 occasions all year, not that big a deal & hopefully Mayhem will be able to do his own troubleshooting before too long.

***2011*** The remote has stopped working. This means we can’t mute the sound to just headphones, so we have to listen to the movie because without the mute I can’t switch the AUX on to play our audiobook. It cuts the speaker sound out on the DVDs. So I need to order a new remote, but there are two styles, neither of which looks like the one I have.

2010 - The car currently has 40,622 miles on it, which is sort of low for me but since I am not driving the kids to school & back any more thanks to the wonders of public school buses, I am not driving  250 miles a week.  It has to get a new inspection sticker today & the back brakes are squealing so I know they will need fixed, but I have high hopes that for the first time in about 5 years I am not going to get hit with a bunch of surprise repairs that need done.

2011 – The car has 57,009 miles on it & has needed some brake work. It also randomly puts the engine light on because it doesn’t like how I put the gas cap back on. My tags expired Sunday & the DMV never sent me a notice about it. I only noticed it because I was washing the car. I didn’t even notice the inspection sticker until I was reading the old post on this. I need to get that done this month. But as before I doubt I’ll get hit with lots of unexpected repairs. At least I hope not.

Overall I’m liking the mini van.  Still wish it were electric blue though.

12 comments:

Susan Mealiea said...

What a great idea. I love the yearly updates.

Darcy@Somewhatmuddledmusings said...

No matter how cool, I still can't bring myself to want a mini-van. To me, that always screamed typical suburban mom -and I'm so far from that (not that you are...it was just a personal thing for me).

We had an electric blue Nissan Versa til the horrific crash of '09..and still love the color so much, but couldn't bring myself to buy the new Versa in that color. The car saved our life, so we bought a new one, but I had to change colors - the blue just gave me the willies.

Rinda1961 said...

What a great way to revisit things. My husband was thrilled when we outgrew the minivan period of our life!
Rinda

Carrie/scrapchick said...

Fun post. And yum - Electric Blue. ;)

Cari Wegner said...

I have van envy. That's all I can say. Good post!

SciFi Dad said...

This is an interesting idea, posting about a new vehicle annually.

Maybe I'll try it with our next one.

Beverly Edwards said...

Love the nnual updates, my Mazda 6 is 7 years old and I still am in love with it (and am glad they didn't have the copper color in stock that i so badly wanted, charcoal has aged well)

Alison said...

Great post..I loved it when we had our mini-van!
Alison xx

M Martinez said...

I so wish I didn't need a mini van but I do it's a must and I so don't plan on upgrading anytime soon :) I like all your before and after thoughts :) Great read and TFS

Andrea @ The Creative Junkie said...

I've been reading you long enough to remember this post! In fact, I think I may have commented about the advantage of not having my kids be able to touch each other while riding in a car as well. But I probably hadn't yet gone to IKEA when I read this the first time and now I know ... any vehicle that can haul IKEA crap in it is a vehicle for me!

Comfy Mom said...

I never wanted a mini van for the same reason, but neither DH or I wanted an SUV so we couldn't find much else in out price range. I was pushing to just get a sedan, he was pushing the van & in the end I liked it best of what we could find locally. I am so buying a Miata or something when I no longer have to seat 4 all the time. :)

Comfy Mom said...

The mini van is awesome for IKEA, so much better than the sedan I wanted originally would have been.