Originally Posted By: fdcg27
Originally Posted By: Spazdog
Originally Posted By: fdcg27
Originally Posted By: supton
I drive lots of miles, so I usually am looking at mpg. But when I am trying to justify a car purchase I'm also looking at depreciation, repairs, etc; and boiling them into either TCO or cost/mile. At least that is true for my cars. My truck, err, I decided to look it as a luxury and was much more irrational about it.
Hard to beat a large do-all vehicle. 'cept for purchase and running costs. And parking. And disapproval from those who don't own large vehicles.
Ford once made a RWD minivan that fit this bill.
It was even available in an entended version if you needed even more room and could be bought with AWD.
We averaged better than 20 mpg with ours over 175K trouble free miles.
Ford built the last of these in 1997 and there has been nothing with the same combination of low price, operating economy and durability/reliabilty since.
A large SUV is a poor substitute for an Aerostar.
Toyota, Nissan, Mitsubishi, GM, and Volkswagen all built RWD minvans.
Actually, Toyota had two - the Van Wagon and the Previa
Of the vehicles you cite, the early RWD Toyota, Nissan & Mitsu were home market commercial vehicles on very short wheelbases and are more accurately described as microvans. They had dodgy handling and no refinement. IIRC, Nissan's were plagued with engine fires and Nissan tried to buy all of those sold back.
The Astro was an overweight pig of a vehicle.
The Vanagon (we owned one and really liked it) and the Previa both offer huge interior volume, especially the VW and both could be had with AWD in certain years. Neither met my criteria of low priced, though and the Vanagon had no power whether equipped with the Type IV or the later Wasserboxer.
The Previa only had power in the supercharged versions.
Both the Vanagon and the Previa are very durable vehicles.
Our Vanagon was actually rated to carry more than 1900 lbs, but I don't think I'd want to tow much with one.
This leaves the Aerostar, cheap to buy, decent tow capacity, good fuel economy and no pesky LIM gasket changes needed.
We found the Aerostar to be one of our efficient purchases.
Less than 15K brand new and very useful for the 175K and thirteen years we had it.
The only thing I ever had to do to it other than brakes and tires was a starter replacement.
Even the AC remained ice cold with no service needed.
We had a Toyota Van Wagon at the lot I worked at.
It had been some sort of conversion van. The rear most seat folded into a short bed, it had curtains, hardwood, mood lighting, and everything was upholstered in thick maroon velour. It only had seatbelts for the front two seats...kinda pointless if you ask me. In a frontal collision, you are in the crumple zone.
The 4Y engine was plenty durable. Its primarily used as a forklift engine.
It was slow, but so was the Vanagon and the 2.3 Aerostar.
I don't remember it being a sketchy handler....well, no worse than the '65 Chevy van that I took my driving test in.
The worst thing about that van was accessing the engine compartment. The choke didn't work on the '65 so you simply opened the doghouse and held the choke closed with one hand and turned the key with the other. Running low on coolant from a leaky radiator? Have your passenger fill it on the fly. Pulling over not necessary. That was not even an option in the Toyota Van Wagon. You could check your oil by sliding the passenger seat all the way forward and the driver seat all the way back and then unclipping and folding the driver seat back. You wanna' do more with the engine? It's about 20 [darn] bolts and they are two different sizes.
The Astros had steering problems. The idler arms were junk and there were two of them. Premium aftermarket replacements fix that.
Originally Posted By: Spazdog
Originally Posted By: fdcg27
Originally Posted By: supton
I drive lots of miles, so I usually am looking at mpg. But when I am trying to justify a car purchase I'm also looking at depreciation, repairs, etc; and boiling them into either TCO or cost/mile. At least that is true for my cars. My truck, err, I decided to look it as a luxury and was much more irrational about it.
Hard to beat a large do-all vehicle. 'cept for purchase and running costs. And parking. And disapproval from those who don't own large vehicles.
Ford once made a RWD minivan that fit this bill.
It was even available in an entended version if you needed even more room and could be bought with AWD.
We averaged better than 20 mpg with ours over 175K trouble free miles.
Ford built the last of these in 1997 and there has been nothing with the same combination of low price, operating economy and durability/reliabilty since.
A large SUV is a poor substitute for an Aerostar.
Toyota, Nissan, Mitsubishi, GM, and Volkswagen all built RWD minvans.
Of the vehicles you cite, the early RWD Toyota, Nissan & Mitsu were home market commercial vehicles on very short wheelbases and are more accurately described as microvans. They had dodgy handling and no refinement. IIRC, Nissan's were plagued with engine fires and Nissan tried to buy all of those sold back.
The Astro was an overweight pig of a vehicle.
The Vanagon (we owned one and really liked it) and the Previa both offer huge interior volume, especially the VW and both could be had with AWD in certain years. Neither met my criteria of low priced, though and the Vanagon had no power whether equipped with the Type IV or the later Wasserboxer.
The Previa only had power in the supercharged versions.
Both the Vanagon and the Previa are very durable vehicles.
Our Vanagon was actually rated to carry more than 1900 lbs, but I don't think I'd want to tow much with one.
This leaves the Aerostar, cheap to buy, decent tow capacity, good fuel economy and no pesky LIM gasket changes needed.
We found the Aerostar to be one of our efficient purchases.
Less than 15K brand new and very useful for the 175K and thirteen years we had it.
The only thing I ever had to do to it other than brakes and tires was a starter replacement.
Even the AC remained ice cold with no service needed.
We had a Toyota Van Wagon at the lot I worked at.
It had been some sort of conversion van. The rear most seat folded into a short bed, it had curtains, hardwood, mood lighting, and everything was upholstered in thick maroon velour. It only had seatbelts for the front two seats...kinda pointless if you ask me. In a frontal collision, you are in the crumple zone.
The 4Y engine was plenty durable. Its primarily used as a forklift engine.
It was slow, but so was the Vanagon and the 2.3 Aerostar.
I don't remember it being a sketchy handler....well, no worse than the '65 Chevy van that I took my driving test in.
The worst thing about that van was accessing the engine compartment. The choke didn't work on the '65 so you simply opened the doghouse and held the choke closed with one hand and turned the key with the other. Running low on coolant from a leaky radiator? Have your passenger fill it on the fly. Pulling over not necessary. That was not even an option in the Toyota Van Wagon. You could check your oil by sliding the passenger seat all the way forward and the driver seat all the way back and then unclipping and folding the driver seat back. You wanna' do more with the engine? It's about 20 [darn] bolts and they are two different sizes.
The Astros had steering problems. The idler arms were junk and there were two of them. Premium aftermarket replacements fix that.
