Our car just hit 115,000 miles. Which is starting to really effect the value of the vehicle. We were planning on waiting until tax return so we had a large down to buy a van. But with the value dropping so fast I think it would be a good idea to get it sooner.

Now I know that others put three kids in the back of a car, but I am going to have a teen and a toddler at the same time, so that just won't fly with our family. I just can't imagine Alex climbing into the middle of the backseat at 11 or 12 years old and being ok with that. So anyway... we want a van. We are looking at something about our cars age, perhaps a little newer, so we want a 2003/2004. We want something with good gas milage and a good track record so we have been looking at Toyota Siennas, but then we looked at Dodge Caravans and they are about $5000 cheaper on average. We know why, the drive trains go bad on these and they do not retain their value very well at all. But that $5000 is a lot of money to think about paying over 4 years or whatever. It adds to the payment and it is starting to make me nervous.

Right this second we will get about what we owe for our car on a trade in. Which is AWESOME. It shows we were really smart about our deal, but it still means we are just buying a car with very little (or no) down payment. That doesn't feel good to me considering the whole reason we are doing so well on the car we have is the down payment we put down when we got it.

I just need advice... I have been looking for one of those "double your trade in" deals and we will JUMP on one if we find it... most of those are ruses, but at least we will be out of this car and if we only get $2000 extra out of it, it will be worth it.

Advice? WWYD's? Any thoughts?

Val

It's hard, because yeah - you aren't upside-down - but all that cash you put into the car is *gone.* I hate that about cars.

Well now is the time, too, as they want to clear things out and get 2007's in - they are running a lot of good deals this time of year. But you can get a good deal any time of year.

My advice is to scour the forums at edmunds.com on the type of vehicle you want to get. That is what we did with the Subaru, and we got the best possible deal, and a very high trade-in too. We just kept at them, chipping away at the price and increasing our trade-in value, until we were where we wanted to be. It took a while - most of a week - but it was so worth it because we saved about $3000 off what most people pay for the vehicle. We played dealerships off each other, and walked out of there multiple times. It's hard to do with kids, but worth the effort.

As far as what to get - I have never had a Dodge but I had a Ford Windstar (a year with problems) and it's so frustrating, beyond the drive train there were so many little issues with it. At the same time I hear you, $5000 is a lot of money...that's a tough one.

I have heard of websites where you just take over payments on vehicles, people also list these in the paper sometimes. I don't know if they are a good deal or not, but it might be worth looking into.

With regards to the Dodge Caravan...we have a Chrysler Town and Country which is the same thing and have had no problems whatsoever. Ours is a 2002 that we bought new. We love it! That being said we will probably get a Toyota Sienna next...it will not replace the Town and Country, it will replace my dh's Jeep Cherokee that is getting waaaay up there in miles and has poor gas mileage. Dh will drive the T and C and I will get the new van. :)

We had a 92 Caravan which we replaced in 2003 with an 02 Caravan. We've had no trouble with either (knock on wood!) I really like the Toyota and Honda vans, but we've gotten such good deals on our vans I can't see paying that much. We bought our 02 for $13K it's list value was $17, the state made us pay taxes on 15 since they wouldn't go that low (the dealer had warned us of it so we knew) We'll have it paid off early next year, and we've never been upside down even with nothing down. I think the newer ones have an a longer warranty? Built in safety seats have been great also! I'd like to have a Rav 4 (the new ones have a third row seat that will fold down) now that one of mine is almost driving himself, and the youngest are in boosters. We aren't all in the car together that often, but we still need to seat six, and it's nice to be able to haul the kids friends along sometimes :) But I want a few years without a car payment so as long as it keeps going I'll be in the Caravan.
Anne

I have a 1998 Dodge Caravan....we got it brand new, and now have 116,000 miles on it. Never has it had a major issue. Little things, yes...batteries, some fuel thing, etc. But always typical things you'd expect with any car (same type of issues we see with dh's 1993 Honda Civic with 110,00 miles on it). No drive train issues at all.

I think it depends on who you buy from, former owner wise. I have a sister-in-law who had a Windstar with major issues, and she was the only owner. Our friend had a Sienna that started having major issues at around 65,000, so she sold hers and got a Kia. She loves it. And yet another friend swears by only Honda mini-vans....sigh. LOL.

Good luck!

I have a 1998 Dodge Caravan....we got it brand new, and now have 116,000 miles on it. Never has it had a major issue. Little things, yes...batteries, some fuel thing, etc. But always typical things you'd expect with any car.

Yeah, that. We have a 98 grand Caravan w/the bigger engine. We did quite a bit of research and the Caravan's w/the smaller engines have issues with the tranny, etc. The model we have has two recalls, a fuel rail (probably what Denise referred to) and a clockspring recall. Free fixes. BTW, even being a '98, when driven correctly (aka not gunning the engine, tune up and maint) I get 21-23mpg, sometimes higher.

If it were me I would private party sell the current vehicle (you get more money for it that way) and look for a used, reliable vehicle and put a bit of money into having a tune up and various routine maintainence done on the "new to you" vehicle to make it run optimally.

There are many hidden costs in trading in a vehicle AND buying new, plus your new vehicle goes down in value as much as 35% from the minute you drive it off the lot! Then there are high insurance rates, taxes, registration... it adds up. Even with a trade in you are still financing the portion you owe for the old car because it has to be paid off one way or another so you're automatically leaving the car dealership topheavy on debt/value.

I love having no car payment~ absolutely priceless! And my car insurance (for two vehicles) is less than $37/month.

http://newautos.about.com/od/buyingadvice/qt/QTHiddenCost.htm

http://www.carbuyingtips.com/car4.htm

So there's my opinion. :) Probably not the popular one.

I too second the other posters that are advising selling your current car privately, you'll get a better deal.

We just bought a 2nd car- a van nonetheless because we two are going to have three children soon and it was going to be a very, very tight squeeze getting everyone to fit in the backseat of our Mitz. Montero. We could have done it but the thought of getting a baby in and out of the middle everytime we had to go somewhere was exhausting me and I hadn't even done it yet.

We went to a used car dealer- just a little local lot and ended up with a 92 Pontiac Montana. It has a lot of great features in it. The most exciting is that it seats 7! Not that we ever plan on filling it with a family that size, but that there is a lot of room.

We got financing through our own bank and just did a two year loan. The payments are only $350 a month- in reality we can pay up to $500 a month in payments and still have some breathing room in the budget but we didn't want to make things tight- we would rather pay extra each month and pay it off in under two years.

We did take it to the mechanic and had a cortesty check and had all the fluids (radiator, transmission, and oil) changed and filled new.

But, anyways- that's not offering advice I guess only saying what we have done. I do know and understand the need for a bigger size car when adding a third child. Just don't get in over your head because it will cause stress later on.

Tawnya