Sigh. I guess there’s no avoiding it. We’re capitulating to the dark side. Not only are we in the market for a second car, but we’re officially shopping for a minivan now.<\/p>\n
At first, I thought maybe we could get by with the Mazda 5<\/a> or the Kia Rondo<\/a>, the new station wagons with the third row of seating. (I love our Ford Focus wagon. We’re on our second one, and I think it’s the perfect family car — if you have two kids or less.) But, I’ve been doing some reading and there isn’t even enough storage space in the back of the Mazda 5 for a stroller, let alone some of the gear you’d have to bring along for an excursion of any length. So, we’re looking at minivans.<\/p>\n Aside from the stigma of being a minivan mom, and the horrendous fuel consumption, I have other concerns about the minivan. I hate the idea that one of the kids will be in the very back row – and very far out of my reach. If I put Tristan’s booster seat in the back row, Simon will want to be back there, too, and that seems a long way from me up in the driver’s seat. And of course I can’t put the baby’s seat way back there. For families with more than two kids, how do you arrange the seating in your car?<\/p>\n And then there’s the whole rigamarole of actually choosing and buying a van — makes me tired just thinking about it. I ordinarily love car shopping, but I’m feeling no joy in this one. I don’t know from minivans, and I don’t know what to look for in selecting one. They all look the same to me, and even after a few weeks of comparison shopping by scoping out other peoples’ vans in the grocery store parking lot (a bonus of living in the child-rich suburbs) I still can’t tell what distinguishes one van from another.<\/p>\n Our final dilemma is the new-vs-used debate. The monthly payments to lease a 2008 are actually less than what it would cost to buy a used 2004 or 2005, so that will probably be the route we go. Given the time of year, we might be able to find a good deal on a 2007, I’m thinking. Did you know that Ford and Saturn are no longer even offering minivans for 2008? So the main contenders right now seem to be the Kia Sedona<\/a>, the Dodge Grand Caravan <\/a>and the Hyundai Entourage<\/a>. (I’d love a Toyota Sienna or Honda Odyssey, but both are a little out of our price range for now… it’s going to be painful enough doubling our existing car and insurance payments!!) I was playing around on the “build and price<\/a>” part of the Dodge Caravan web site, but gave up because there are just too many options and I frankly am not sure whether I care about more than half of them. Even stuff like A\/C and power windows is not overly important to me… although I do love the the heated seats on our Focus. Nothing like a warm toushie on a cold February morning!!<\/p>\n So, minivan owners, educate me. What features do you absolutely love about your van? What do you hate? What can’t you do without? Which features would you pay extra for? Wax poetic or rant righteously, but tell me what I need to know when I’m shopping for a minivan please!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sigh. I guess there’s no avoiding it. We’re capitulating to the dark side. Not only are we in the market for a second car, but we’re officially shopping for a minivan now. At first, I thought maybe we could get by with the Mazda 5 or the Kia Rondo, the new station wagons with the … Continue reading “So, talk to me about minivans”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-the-universe-and-everything"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1063\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}