The van search continues...

I am so surprised were our minivan search is leading.  I test drove a Sienna the other day.  It was okay but not at all what I am excited to spend a large sum of money on.  So it looks like the class leading Odyssey and Sienna are out of the running.  We are concentrating on search now on the VW Routan and the Chrysler Town and Country.  You may remember that the Routan (pronounced, Roo-tahn) is basically a Town and Country with some tweaks to the suspension, nicer seats and VW finishes.  One review I read called it, a "pig with lipstick."  But I say, if your going to buy a pig, what is wrong with a little lipstick?:-)




I like the Routan better after seeing and test driving both, but the differences aren't huge.  It will likely come down to who can give us the best price.  Another very surprising thing is that we are now looking to buy new; well, new 2010 models.  After seeing what we can get for 20K in a Sienna or Odyssey, we decided to bump up our price range in order to get a newer van, and that brought us into the price range for 2010 Routan's and Town & Country's.

It is so hard to spend thousands of dollars on a vehicle your really don't like/want and that steered me away from the Sienna/Odyssey.  They were nice, but felt like such a old person, 'mom' car.  They drove like Camery/Accords, which is not at all what I am use to.  I have always driven trucks or the Jeep and strange as it sounds, I prefer a more 'rough,' sporty feeling vehicle.  I liked the Routan and found myself getting excited about it, I am not at all excited about the Sienna/Odyssey.  Of course I am neverous about buying another Chyrsler product and not the more reliable Toyota or Honda.  We are going out to Beaverton to look at a Routan tomorrow.  If we can get them down to a price we like we will be buying!  I am excited to have the search over.  It has been a lot of work and pretty annoying dealing with car salesmen.  The guy from the bank was not able to find us a great deal as we first though he would, which was a bummer.