Help with buying a minivan

[BottenFieldofDreams]

I don’t know if this is a West Coast thing, but there’s a culture here of buying right-side drive little Japanese diesel vans. Often 4x4. People spend a fortune. It’s weird.

The Sprinters I get. And hopefully in a few years I can get a beat up one cheap. The Japanese imports are kind of cool in the way a Honda Elite is kitschy/corny cool. But probably hipster nonsense.

[haltz]

I don’t know if this is a West Coast thing, but there’s a culture here of buying right-side drive little Japanese diesel vans. Often 4x4. People spend a fortune. It’s weird.

The Sprinters I get. And hopefully in a few years I can get a beat up one cheap. The Japanese imports are kind of cool in the way a Honda Elite is kitschy/corny cool. But probably hipster nonsense.

Like this? I haven't seen that around here. Looks fun I guess if you have a lot of extra money and no idea what to do with it.

[haltz]

Now that I'm looking at unusual cars on Doug Demuro's site, I'd like to recommend this R63 AMG as a 17 year old, 500hp practical answer to the original question.

[JoeMcKim]

Do they really even make that many minivans anymore? Price wise and quality of vehicles to choose from you're probably better off buying an SUV. If you don't want to buy a ginormous SUV, they have compact SUVs also which is about the same size that a minivan is.

[haltz]

Do they really even make that many minivans anymore? Price wise and quality of vehicles to choose from you're probably better off buying an SUV. If you don't want to buy a ginormous SUV, they have compact SUVs also which is about the same size that a minivan is.

Yeah and a bunch of newer ones have awesome technology and family features. Something in general to consider with kids especially if they're young is automatic doors and a low step in height which minivans do very well. My experience putting kids in a car-seat in an Armada was not fun and worse for my partner and when they're old enough to open doors you really have to watch them in an SUV. Plenty of SUVs or crossovers that you don't feel like you're climbing into though

[AdmiralKird]

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Please no more SUVs.

[ThatGuy]

Do they really even make that many minivans anymore? Price wise and quality of vehicles to choose from you're probably better off buying an SUV. If you don't want to buy a ginormous SUV, they have compact SUVs also which is about the same size that a minivan is.

The segment has definitely been whittled down to a few main competitors. No domestic competition aside from the Pacifica, which is only kinda domestic anymore.

To the OP: You might also want to look at the Kia Carnival if you're dead set on a minivan—here's a recent Car and Driver comparison test for reference. Have you considered midsize SUVs like the Kia Telluride, Hyundai Palisade, Toyota Highlander, or Mazda CX-9?

[a_smith]

Thanks for all the info.
We are not deadset on a minivan, but it is really convenient for what we do. We have a small minivan (Mazda-5) that we are outgrowing.

We haul a lot of kids around (our two and often 3 more) to all of the daily activities that kids do. Then we have road trip/ camping trips with family.
Sliding side doors are nice for getting in and out of the car and not having a door taken off because one of my offspring opened the door in a high traffic area without looking.

A sprinter van is in our future once the kids get out of the house and we have more time to camp/rock climb again.