Dad! This is exactly what we don’t want! This is a short, red, Caravan with no roof rack!
My father-in-law, the Ford sales associate had been looking for a good trade in to replace our faltering Windstar (COAL on that vehicle here). What we really wanted was a Grand Caravan with a roof rack for carrying canoes, hauling Christmas trees etc. Also we were tired of red vehicles, having had three in a row.
Dad had called us up and said “Hey, a good van just came in, you gotta come and see it right away if you want first dibs!” Mrs DougD had asked “Is it a good one, like we want?” to which he replied “Oh yeah it’s nice, come on down”
Well we got there and saw what it was, and we were a little deflated but Dad said “It’s two years old, it has 70,000km and I can get it to you at a great price“. We went for a test drive; it started, stopped, went around corners and had functional A/C. By the end of the test drive our inner Dutch cheapness had won out again and we signed the papers. No champagne bottles were popped, but at least we had a reliable van for the moment. If we hated it or something better came along we figured we could sell it and break even.
On the Lake Champlain Ferry – 2009
One of the first things we did was buy a used 8′ pop up tent trailer and take a family trip to Franconia Notch in New Hampshire. We hadn’t dared to tow with the Windstar, but the Caravan acquitted itself well. The 3.3 liter V6 had adequate-ish power for highway and hills, and the brakes were able to slow everything down on some long steep grades.
Less impressive was the interior. Hard plastics abounded, it honestly felt like you were sitting in a 1:1 scale plastic model car. The door panels were so hard it hurt to rest your elbow anywhere. Some say that hard plastics don’t matter if you never touch them, but I think hard surfaces transmit & reflect sound better. The Caravan was definitely noisier inside than the Windstar had been. Separate seats in the middle row was nice, but the lack of stow and go meant we still had to wrestle seats in and out of the van. I put my back out a couple of times doing that, we wound up mostly leaving the rear bench out in the summer. During school season we would often run the water-polo practice carpool, so the seat would stay in and I could drive around hauling six burly teenage boys with wet hair.
A Roof Rack! My Kingdom for a Roof Rack!
So what was initially envisioned as a temporary solution became the permanent solution. Although in areas that use road salt Caravans are notorious for rusty rocker panels ours did not rust, thanks to Krown rustproofing and a little trickery on my part:
One day I passed a REALLY rusty Caravan, and with the outer skin gone I saw the there was a plastic access cover on the inside shut panel. The cover was glued on, but I bought a proper rubber plug of the right size (actually a floor pan plug for an Edsel) and every couple of years I removed the plug, vacuumed out the accumulated grit, and squirted some extra Krown goo in there.
The Caravan nearly came to its end around the 200,000 km mark. I had decided to show it a little love by replacing the spark plugs. The first one came out fine, the second went snap and only the top came out. “Oh no, oh no!”
After doing some research and asking around I bought the best quality extractor set I could find, hit it with penetrating oil and borrowed my neighbour’s impact gun. With a crazy setup of extensions I was able to reach the plug, but this had no effect. On the second day of the struggle I realized that the plug necked down inside the hole. I found a steel rod of the right size, and went from gentle taps to sharp raps, to pounding on it as hard as I dared between attempts with the impact gun. Finally the gun went BRRRZZZ! and the extractor fell to the ground. Once I saw that the stub of the spark plug was attached to it I was so relieved I almost cried. So only two plugs got replaced, and it never seemed to mind having 4 old ones. I should have just left well enough alone.
Well enough was quite good, the Caravan just kept doing its job without complaint. The radiator got replaced and I had to do the alternator twice but that was pretty much it. We always got there, and significantly we always got back. Always there, always back. Even when the alternator died I was able to drive home and do the repair in my driveway, it’s the only vehicle I’ve had where there was never some sort of rescue or remote repair.
Our decision to part with the Caravan was made gradually. As it approached 300,000 km we were wondering how much longer it could possibly last with this level of reliability. Also my father-in-law was getting close to retirement, and we wanted to buy one more vehicle from him before that happened. So we put him on the case in Nov 2017, were quite picky (for a change) and bought a 2015 Grand Caravan from him in July 2018. Not red. With a roof rack.
After the annoyance of trying to sell our 2001 Focus I conceded that a 2007 Caravan with 300,000km was nearly worthless and devised a great plan to rid ourselves of it. Our son was going to do a gap year working at a young people’s camp, and they had a small fleet of older minivans to haul people and supplies around locally. So at the beginning of September 2018 our son put the snow tires and his belongings into the Caravan, drove himself north to camp, and handed over keys and ownership when he got there.
Camp Vans – The silver one is ours, maybe someday it’ll live here too.
I guess that was the one trip where the Caravan got there but not back. When we visited just last week we saw our old Caravan shod with the snow tires and seemingly doing well. If I had to put money on picking my most reliable car ever I would not have picked this one, but there you go. Still getting there, and back. Well done Caravan.
I can vouch for the Rubbermaid™ interior in DougD’s van, having been treated to a ride in this very vehicle to take a short tour of semi-famous Dundas, Ontario when the D’s invited us to dinner last year when we visited Niagara Falls.
It was jarring, actually, as we’d owned two fourth-gen vans (an ’06 GC and ’05 TC), both of which were mid-trim US-market models. It was like time-tripping back to the early 1970s with my base-model ’71 Vega and its hard plastic and rubber interior.
But, like DougD’s Caravan, the five Chrysler platform minivans we’ve owned have all provided good, reliable service over the years (except for the two that were totaled prematurely). When the wife’s ’12 Routan is finally due for replacement, I’m not sure where we’ll turn, as this platform will surely be gone by then. I like the Pacifica, and perhaps it will prove to be just as boringly reliable as the Caravan and its platform mates have been.
Those plugs sure do get difficult to remove after a time. I soaked the ones in my 2005 with the 3.8 while the engine cooled off. The heat and penetration of the PB Blaster. That and a prayer did the trick. Replacing mine at 110k miles solved my engine miss under load issue. Tips were clean but electrodes nearly gone.
I recently replaced the plugs on my ’04 Seinna @ 152K miles. One came out kind of hard and the threads had to be chased. But the four-hour, PITA job really didn’t have to be done because the old plugs were almost like new. They could have gone 200K easy.
Your spark plug woes are the reason I would never own a car with a transverse V-6 – although I did own Pop’s old V-8 transverse Caddy for a while…
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/cars-of-a-lifetime/coal-1991-cadillac-sedan-de-ville-biiiiiiig-pimpin/
I never touched the spark plugs, nor would I want to!
MY van had four cylinders… and a clutch!
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/cars-of-a-lifetime/coal-1992-plymouth-voyager-they-made-those-with-manual-transmissions/
What’s the story with the two different license plate numbers?
Good eye. I cut and paste the letters around so as to obscure the real plate number. Looks like I did it a different way each time.
I was going to do plugs on my 99 T&C 3.3, but the back 3 were virtually inaccessible. My mechanic doubted that the rears hadever been done in over 200k miles. I let him have the pleasure.
IIRC, 2007 was the final year of this generation GC, but also the first year to get Stow n’Go, fold-into-the-floor second row seating. The next (and still current) generation GC might be technically better (mainly because of the 3.6L Pentastar engine and the bigger, upgraded brakes with the 2012 refresh) but the 2007 was definitely better looking.
2005 was the first year of Stow and Go. 2011 was the first year for the 3.6 with the mid-cycle refresh. Standard HD brakes with 17″ wheels were a mid-2012 update.
Mopar vans seem to have such a perplexing reputation: slagged by the internet hivemind most of the time and shunned by “smart” shoppers that go straight to CR-approved Siennas and Odysseys, and yet I read plenty of stories like these, and see many past and current gen vans with near-or-more 200k miles on original drivetrains.
I just test drove some lightly used van options this past Saturday, tried a ’14 50k mile T&C “S” listed for $17k, ’13 83k mile Odyssey EX-L lsited for the same $17k, ’14 68k mile Grand Caravan SXT listed at $11,5k, and finally the Toyota place didn’t have a used Sienna to test drive so I tried a new ’18 Sienna XLE ($37k).
Out of all of them, the Town and Country S stood out as the smoothest riding and having the best interior and most satisfying powertrain. Not sure if it was the fresh set of Michelins that were on it, but it drove MUCH nicer than the ’14 Caravan which felt rougher and just more worn, despite being the same age and just slightly more miles. Odyssey handled the best (least lean), but the interior is CHEAP, and I didn’t care for how VCM kicked in. Also the dash layout/ergonomics make you really stretch for certain functions, and is just plain ugly IMO. Finally the Sienna with the new DI 3.5L and 8spd auto. Did not leave much of an impression except that the 8spd gave it a weird lag from a stop, the Chrysler 3.6+6spd felt much smoother and more intuitive (and sounded better) away from a stop.
I didn’t even look at the new Sedonas as I object wholly to not being able to remove the middle row of seats in a van, nor do I like their console mounted shifter. Otherwise I think they are perhaps the best combination of value/quality.
At this point I think we’ve honed in on a lightly used T&C, newer and lower miles the better, and I’m going to try to find one with the heated seats and steering wheel.
I know what you mean, I think sometimes there’s a difference between perception and reality. I found the T&C to be quite a bit less refined than the Odyssey or Sienna on our rough roads, but that’s what we ended up with because it was by far the best value. Ours is a 2012 and really starting to feel dated now, but over 70K miles the only repair needed has been a wheel bearing.
The heated steering wheel can be a bit tough to find since so many on the used market are fleet vehicles. I believe it’s standard on the Touring L though. Ours is an oddball. A Touring with most of what a Touring L has, but with the no-cost option cloth seats instead of the standard leather. The blind spot monitoring with cross path detection is also a must have feature in these I think, it really adds some security when backing out of parking spots.
Ironically, my 2015 Caravan is currently at the dealership undergoing transmission diagnosis. 🙁
On the same day the article about its reliable predecessor is posted.
Curious to hear what they find? How many miles on it? I’ve heard of flex plates cracking on them, and I remember Tom K over at TTAC had total failure at low mileage on his new-off-the-lot T&C S.
Well they have ordered a whole replacement transmission and will call me back when it gets in. If this pans out and FCA pays for it I will be very grateful that the original owner purchased the extended and transferrable warranty!
I have a 2011 Town & Country… the check engine light is permanently on with transmission codes… They have known weaknesses… It runs perfectly unless I try to down shift into 4th gear on a downslope. So I just ignore the light.
It replaced a red 2004 Caravan that never gave a problem and is still running perfectly fine for the friend that bought it from me…
“What we really wanted was a Grand Caravan with a roof rack for carrying canoes, hauling Christmas trees etc. Also we were tired of red vehicles, having had three in a row.”
I can relate. When we bought our second minivan a few months ago, we wanted a roof rack, and our kids were sick of silver vehicles. So, of course, we got a silver minivan with no roof rack.
But it was cheap, so I’m happy. Maybe I’m secretly Dutch?
I took – over the lease on a ’99 Plymouth Voyager van which was virtually identical to this. Great vehicle, although it had the usual late’90’s Mopar problems including a bad clockspring, bad power window motors and a bad transmission.
I would like to think Chrysler fixed these problems by 2007, because it was a useful, efficient and sensible vehicle. It rode and drove like a tall car, and not at all like a truck or SUV. Frankly, I think a minivan would suit most urban SUV/CUV owners a lot better than their elephantine vehicles of choice. But the minivan image is unfairly tainted for many consumers, these days.
I would happily get another van, but they seem to hold their value well. I never have found a good one at my typical bargain – basement price.
I think we can consider this as service rendered and a great gesture to donate it to a good cause rather than get the “minimum part exchange $499” offer.
I suspect this is/was the only Caravan with a Edsel item on it.
My father had a new 2000 Caravan that went through 3 automatic transmissions, a failed A/C compressor, failed window regulators all within 72,000 miles. The first transmission failed at 20,000 miles backing up a driveway! Dad’s Caravan also had a myriad of electrical problems.The Caravan also had persistent issues with the brakes.
That was the first and last Chrysler product Dad every purchased.
Dad sold the Caravan 5 years later and got himself a used 1999 Toyota Sienna that had 70,000 miles on it. He drove the Sienna for the next 7 years totaling 187,000 miles and then gave it to my daughter who drove it until it reached the 300,000 mile mark. It still ran like a charm and looked good, but my daughter wanted a Prius. And got a nice one two years ago. It was her dream car.
The Sienna required very little maintanence and never once failed my Dad or my daughter. It was a marvelous little van.
There’s never a day you don’t see old Toyotas on the road looking and running great.
Put me in the “true believer” camp. Old blue was my company car until Sep 2014. Most reliable vehicle I ever had. 240k miles with nothing more than routine maintenance. It was a rare 4wd model. Good in the conditions shown. After retirement from the sales fleet, one of these was kept for local trips. Over 400k miles when retired. I really don’t like any minivan and Dodge rarely comes to mind when discussing well built cars. Yet they sure seem to have these older generation vans mastered.
I had the same issue with replacing the spark plugs in my former Chevrolet Celebrity with V6 engine. The plugs adjacent to the firewall was most pain-in-the-arse to replace. Mostly, it was done through feeling my way around rather than seeing where to insert the wrench. I had broken the ceramic part too often when the wrench shifted to wrong angle. I was very frustrated with impossibly tight space and limited sighting.
I found this specialised flexible extension tool like this one in the photo. This tool had saved my mind many times over. One tip: you have to hold the end attaching to the spark plug very tightly as you turn the wrench. This ensures that the wrench doesn’t slip or shift to the wrong angle.
Eventually, General Motors redesigned the engine mounts so that the engine could be rotated a few inches forward after disconnecting two dog bone engine mounts.
Great read Doug and sounds like it was a great van. I am glad to see I am not the only one who self applies Krown to their vehicles. I do the same at known problem areas and will also do chassis touch-ups when I am under the vehicles for servicing.
These Mopar vans (and other generations) seem to be bi-polar in nature. In my experience, they are either good and reliable with few problems, or they are very problematic with little in-between. I am glad that your van was of the former category.
My ’96 Aerostar didn’t have a roof rack either, but with so much cargo room on the inside it would have never been needed anyway. I even hauled a Christmas tree in the back of it 2 years in a row with the 3rd-row seats removed & the floor protected. Many years ago we even did it in the trunk of my dad’s ’89 Town Car! For both vehicles the tree fit right in–why go through the trouble of tying it to the top of the roof like you have to do with all those minivans & SUVs? Yeah, I got a few strange looks from other people getting their trees, but in the grand scheme of things it was a true stroke of genius since the tree was not only protected from being blown away by the wind but also kept dry from possible rain & snow. My Ranger with the camper shell could do the same thing, but then the whole family couldn’t come along without riding in another vehicle (there was just enough room for the 4 of us & the tree with the 2nd row still in the van).
I’d like to know more about this Krown spray. Sure it keeps the body pretty, but what about underneath where it really counts? Brake lines, fuel lines, steering gear, etc. What about that? And how about car washes? Wouldn’t the high pressure jets simply blow the oil right off?
Forgive my Skepticism, but a lifetime of working on Minnesota cars has left me pessimistic about rust.
A little rustier, and a LOT dirtier. We visited the kids at camp July 13th and saw our former Caravan scooting around running errands.
Thumbs up here from Miss Erin D. She’s a bit taller than in the 2nd photo up above.