Hello everyone. I've been following the Dakota and Durango forums for a while, but am new to the Caravan one. My wife has been thinking of getting her "soccer mom" on for a while and I just found a Grand Caravan I like but want some input from other owners as to what to look for. Any major issues that are common on these? Any package or engine I should avoid? Here is the craigslist posting. Is this a good price? Obviously, I'm gonna offer much less and see where it goes. http://minneapolis.craigslist.org/ank/cto/4364311512.html. Thanks in advance for any help!

 

Pay attention to the strut towers under the hood. They rust out. There is a fix for them but that's the issue I had with mine.

Also, check the color of the coolant. There are quite a few 'rustable' pipes in the coolant lines, as well as the water pump itself. Not a tough fix, though. You can usually cut out the offending area of pipe and replace it with rubber coolant hoses and fittings.

Other than rust, it looks like a 3.8L and I loved mine. *correction the ad says 3.3L, hmm, it looks like the Sport package with the 3.8L (maybe the engine was replaced?)

$4000? low miles but the price seems high.

 

Turned out to be junk. Bad rust repairs, poorly wired hid headlights and horrible led interior lighting. This guy thought he raised the value with all this. I wouldn't pay over $2500 for it. Plus, everything I see online says the Sport model came with the 3.8 and AWD. He had the Sport emblem on the door, but only FWD and a 3.3, which by the way, was spray painted red to "look cool". Yeah, cool is getting overspray all over the engine bay!

 

It IS Craigslist.. I find caravans that actually look flawless all the time on there(I bought one of them), but have blown head gaskets and/or slipping trans.. I seen a nice all stock 2002 daily driver there the other day for $1,300 with clean title..

I live in the south though, so careless or idiot owners at most put stupid wheels on or wire audio stuff wrong.. Maybe wrong coolant or trans fluid.. No massive cancer outbreaks like the north is legendary for..

SIDE NOTE: Isn't the blue book on all gen3 caravans <$2,500? I can buy 2010+ stuff for 4k, sometimes off lots..

 

Wow, $4K is really high for a 15yo relic and the quarter panel is rusted out. Based upon the rust and engine rebuild history it's probably seen millions of 5 mile urban trips and it's been neglected. The engine should have lasted 250K mi wtf?? Obviously the owner ran the coolant system dry. For that price I'd be looking at a BMW or something.


Have you tried autotraderdotcom?? It blows craigslist off the map.


I think you will find a dozen newer 4th gen vans on autotrader for less than that. A year ago I was finding pristine 4th gen 2005 with stow and go for that price. Quit worrying about miles on the odometer. A highway trip van owned by a salesman will have 150K mi and the transmission was in overdrive the whole time. A city van will have more cold start wear, transmission shift cycles and rust with 40K mi. The wear on the drivers seat interior area and overall condition will better tell you how many hours the vehicle has been on the road and whether it's worth it.


I bought a 5th gen SXT Grand Caravan 6spd 3.8L with 80K mi on autotrader almost 2 yrs ago for $8K.


At the time it was 4 years old, not 14 years old. At 2x the cost, it was only about 1/4th as old.

 

Yeah, I actually found that on a facebook group and she had more info on craigslist. It was great that she lived 2 blocks away, but found out fast that it was crap. I saw the quarter panel and the spot around the tailgate handle in the pics and made sure to look at those right away. I found a lot more amatuer rust fixes the more I looked at it. The lights and engine paint sealed the deal at "no offer". I don't do it for a living, but went to school for auto body and know a shoddy job when I see one. Still in the market for a caravan though, so any advice as to what to look for would be great. My wife currently has a Durango R/T. Looks like we'd have to get a sport to keep her comfortable? Is there anything better than a sport? Only looked at this one because it was close and could afford without a loan, but not afraid of getting one. AWD is pretty much a must as we are in Minnesota and get large snowfalls each winter.

 

"Sport" is the basic strippo version, generally with the smaller motor & minimal options. They sure as heck aren't AWD. The van you saw had fake badging.

The AWD van production ended shortly after Gen4 came out. The AWD system was not possible with stow and go plus demand was super low, so it was discontinued without fanfare. Toyota Sienna took over from there. Good luck finding Dodge AWD in good condition for an affordable price. They were extremely rare.

If AWD is a must, better use Autotrader and be ready to take a day off work to chase one down after searching a 500mi circle. I think about 1 in 30 had AWD. You will not find one in the next decade without being extremely aggressive and willing to drive 5 hrs to sellers. Even then your search could take several months.

If possible, I'd just buy FWD and buy a second set of wheels with Blizzak tires for the winter. If you buy a FWD van the choices will be far greater so you will get something half the cost in better conditon. FWD with Blizzaks on all fours will go about as well in the snow as AWD (with all-seasons), plus the blizzaks will stop and turn better. The tires and wheels are a minimal cost when you run them for multiple seasons...your summer tires last longer..the extra cost is limited to about $300 for 4 wheels.

If you intend to run blizzaks on an AWD van, that's another matter. It will go ANYWHERE so long as the snow is less than 18" deep. A FWD van can't compete with that lol.

PS: I'm a former owner of a 4WD Ford Aerostar van in Pittsburgh. With all-seasons, the 4WD didn't go significant better in the snow than my FWD Grand Caravan with 4 snow tires on it. The only exception might be very deep snow where the frame is dragging (over 1 foot). That said, I'm running $60 generic snow tires, not premium Blizzaks that dig like a ground hog and stick like glue. A fwd car with blizzaks will also perform similarly to an AWD car with all seasons...same rule goes for minivans.

 

I found 4 awd vans within 100 miles with decent milage. Unfortunatly, it seems like they're in 4 different directions, lol. Guess friday will be a busy day! As for stow & go, I think that is out of the question anyway. My wife hears they are uncomfortable and we drive cross country now and then.

I can probably look this up on here somewhere, but maybe I'll get lucky and one of you will know. If we get a van with a middle bench, can you easily replace it with captain's chairs? Looking at 03-05 models. I ask because the guy I bought my old Ram from has one at a decent price, and if he treated this van with the same care, I'll get at least 10 years out of it and my wife likes the chairs vs the bench.

I was hoping you all would be as helpfull and friendly as the guys in my Dakota and Durango forums, and I was right! I just hope you'll let me stay if I end up in a Chrysler! Thank you all for your input!

 

Wasn't Sport and Sport AWD the top trim package for Gen3, except for Anniversary editions?

My personal opinion on shopping used caravans: Go gen4 or better. Far less manufactured issues, like the famous Gen3 transmission and dash issues mostly caused by various electrical issues either by themselves or by a plastic piece inside the trans that causes limp mode. They also hold up better after 200k and typically cost less than 3k USD more than Gen3..

 

I'm not a gen 3 expert so you may be right about sport in those yrs.

Sport was a base-ish version gen4 in FWD configuration. Sport Gen 4's from '01 thru '04 had rear drums, smallest brakes, 3.3, no fog lights, entry level stereo, steel stamped 15" wheels with plastic hubcaps etc. Some had one power side door and a power driver seat. The gen 4 non stow and go seats were indeed nice in the 2nd and 3rd row. They are comfortable and wear like iron. My '01 front seats look almost like new, better at 220mi than my Gen 5 with 100K mi.

The early version 1 stow and go rear seats ('05-'07) are somewhat less comfortable than standard seats, but surely not uncomfortable, at least in my opinion. How often does your wife ride in the rear seat anyway?

The front seats are not stow and go on any van and that's where me and my wife sit lol. The teens, carpoolers, free-loaders and hitch-hikers in the rear seats are thankful for taxi service and never complain about seats. My teens have ridden 2K mi each way on trips in the rear stow-and-go seats.The front seats are very comfortable in all Chrysler minivans, gen3, 4 and 5. My Gen5 sxt with full stow and go has the standard issue front seats with no lumbar adjustment and they feel great.

Stow and go is the best invention since the cell phone and TV. There is nothing better than instantly creating a huge cavernous delivery truck that will swallow a washer & dryer or stack of plywood or serve as a weatherproof camper that will fit a FULL 4'x7' double bed mattress with significant cargo stashed. It involves zero lifting, no planning and no storage headaches. I will take that feature over AWD traction with it's inferior performance, 10-15% less gas mileage and added reliability headaches. Figure getting 18MPG on the AWD when FWD owners are seeing 21MPG. However I don't deal with 2 feet of snow for 3 months each year lol. This is my opinion after owning three minivans for a combined total of 1/2 million miles, one extended 4WD (Aerostar), one stow and go (Dodge gen 5) and one without the stow and go (Dodge Gen 4).

Don't assume that the AWD's light duty transverse-mounted AWD transfer case, rear axle drive assembly and electronic power control system will operate trouble-free for 200K mi. Tranny rebuilds on that highly-complex system will be prohibitively-expensive due to additional R&R labor and specialized hardware. It isn't a heavy duty setup like a 4WD truck and it's tougher to fix than a 4WD truck and there are fewer shops wuith the necessary skill. Automotive-class AWD setups are nice to own for the first 100K mi with minimal wear and under warranty....after that they grow risky from a reliability and service cost standpoint.