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Vans & Minivans Honda Odyssey Honda Odyssey vs Dodge/Chrysler minivans 
7485 messages, Last post on Mar 23, 2008 at 7:43 AM
You are in the Honda Odyssey Forum. Your Host is Karens
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Replying to: marig0107 (Jan 27, 2008 12:03 pm) Then she said her son was pinned in the sliding door and her husband had to work frantically to get that child out, not to mention the dog being pinned. At least it was a big dog I know, not funny, but I can't help it. She also said her brakes are worn. She has to brake about a block away. LOL Well, that's what she said. So more time off work to get that fixed. What gets me is that this car is newer than my car which I bought March 07 and she's had that many problems. Leaked so bad she had to call the fire dept. because it pooled up in her driveway? I would think most of it would have run down a driveway onto the street. If not, all she would have had to do is hose it off. Having to break a block ahead to get it to stop in time? I have to wonder if she's telling you the whole truth. That sliding door has a sensor on it that will make the door pop open if anyone touches the edge of it while it's closing. Same with the rear hatch. The whole thing sounds fishy
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I owned a 1994 Dodge Caravan 3.3L for 11 years that gave us good service for the 170,000 miles that we owned it. The transmission did need to be rebuilt once, but that was done at less than 50,000 miles under the new car warranty. It was fine for the rest of the time we had the van. There were really no other major costly repairs that we had to do. Struts, brakes, one starter, along with the usual maintenance stuff (plugs, oil and transmission fluid changes, filters, wipers, etc). Never needed any A/C work, and I think it was still on the original exhaust (including catalytic converter) when we traded it in for a PU truck. I think our overall TCO (total cost of ownership), including acquisition, fuel, maintenance/repairs, insurance, etc was $0.26/mile. Now, there's been some changes in our family and my wife wants another minivan (she's currently driving a Subaru Outback wagon). But, I have mixed feeling about buying another DC minivan because of all the bad press about drive train issues. I'm not worried about the smaller stuff because I can do almost all of the other work (brakes, struts, etc) myself. I'm leaning towards the Honda Odyssey. Either one will have to be a used vehicle, but the Odyssey's, are $5K-$8K more expensive than the DC products for comparable years and mileage. I can find a low mileage 1-2 year old T&C for $12K-$14K, while a year older Odyssey seems to be running more like $18K. Should I gamble on a DC product, figuring I have $5K-$8K to thow at it, or go with the more reliable Odyssey. Note that we intend to keep this van as long or longer than we had or Caravan, so longevity is a major consideration, not trade-in value. 
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Replying to: srs_49 (Feb 04, 2008 9:31 am) They have a really poor history of failures. There was a class action lawsuit for the '99-'01 models. The '02-'04 models also have numerous failures reported. The '05-'06 models have the same transmission as the '02-'04's so don't expect longevity there. '07+ Odysseys have a redesigned 4-shaft tranny shared with the Pilot & Ridgeline trucks. Have to wait for reliablity data on these models. Overall, if you can afford one, I think you are better off with the Honda. They drive like new after 150k+ miles & are worth a good trade when you're finshed. I know that re-sale is not a factor in your decision but it is nice to see at least $5k for an 8 year old van (We got $5k for a 2000 Odyssey with 165k miles). |
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Replying to: srs_49 (Feb 04, 2008 9:31 am) |
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Replying to: marine2 (Feb 03, 2008 6:24 am)  That snow did a number on the underside of the vehicle. I don't know if other cars have issues with rust and snow damage like ours did. I kept it garaged and hosed it quite a bit, but darn! Of course, we have a 93 shadow and the paint on that was never terrific. Sensors do occasionally malfunction, but that I had heard from a friend who had an imported van. I just have never trusted power sliding doors myself. Us getting power windows was a big step for me  I spoke to another close friend of mine who has a caravan one year newer than mine. We almost wet our pants laughing because all the stuff going wrong with mine is happening to her right now. Luckily she has a friend of a relative who can fix them for cost of parts. I was afraid to know what it would cost for us. We just give up, kwim? Luckily dh was able to find a used Tacoma that he wanted and they were willing to take the van. I feel like we cheated them in the deal. ROFL. |
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If you looked at my carspace, you can see what a work horse those vans are. I can load it up moving my Daughter, like I did. Or carry two electric wheel chairs or scooters at once and still put a passenger in the back. Which was the main reason I bought my Dodge, stow n go. Great idea Chrysler had. Sets it apart from all the rest.
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Replying to: marine2 (Feb 05, 2008 3:47 pm) Thank God it never left the kids and I stranded like it did my one girlfriend. I had to pick her up an hour away in the middle of the night at -45 degrees northern NY winter. I will say this, it was practical when the kids were little, when it wasn't in the shop, of course But I did find out that my van could hold 3 half frozen kids, two addtl adults and the tow driver on the floor. yes, the tow drivers truck wouldn't kick over. rofl I had to drive him up to Watertown to get some addtl fuel for his hydraulic lift maybe, can't recall, and then drive him back to his truck and it STILL would not start. But my little caravan kept on ticking But I'll pay a little extra maintaining the Honda and hopefully won't have the repairs like the van. I wonder if it has to do where they were manufactured, or just that myself and two very close friends got lemons, altho we bought ours in different states, NC for us, OK for one and MO for the other? hmmm.....
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Blackexv6 and sebring95 - thanks for the comments. Yeah, I've been diving into the transmission issues on both vehicles. I'm leaning towards a late model T&C, either mid '07 on or earlier than May '06, that still has the longer period power train warranty. Don't need 8 passenger (or even 7, for that matter) capacity any more, so that feature of the Odyssey is a a non-issue. I think in the end it's going to come down to money, or more properly, value. Unless I stumble upon an Odyssey who's price difference is significantly less than the $5K-$8K I mentioned in my earlier post, I'm going with a low mileage T&C. |
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Replying to: marig0107 (Feb 06, 2008 7:31 am) Well you can see we have a family of Dodge/Chrysler minivans and my brother wouldn't have bought another if he had bad luck with it. We wouldn't have bought one either if he had. Sis and I are both first time minivan buyers. Mine was much cheaper to buy than the Ody and cheaper to maintain than our Honda Civic. The insurance is even cheaper on my Dodge than the Civic too, which shocked the heck out of both of us. Our next major expense coming up on the Civic is the timing belt. The Dodge has a chain that doesn't need replacing. While the resale value won't be as good as on the Honda, it won't make much difference as long as we keep our vehicles. We kept our Eagle for 11 years before buying the Civic and with the warranty on the minivan, I plan on keeping it for a long time. While Chrysler did have a lot of problems in the past with their minivans, Honda also has some big ones with auto transmissions and engine problems. Still have some with their sliding doors the last time I looked. If you buy a new Chrysler/Dodge minivan now, your helping to keep millions of dollars in profit in America, creating more jobs for Americans, not Japanese or Germans. Best of all, unless your only using your van as a people hauler, you can't beat the benefits of stow and go and all that storage space. Made me get rid of my truck.
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